THE POSSESSED (1965)
(a.k.a. LA DONNA DEL LAGO/THE LADY OF THE LAKE)
Article #1584 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing Date: 7-16-2005
Posting Date: 12-13-2005
Directed by Luigi Bazzoni and Franco Rossellini
Featuring Virna Lisi, Peter Baldwin, Philippe Leroy

A visitor arrives in a small Italian town in search of a woman. He finds the inhabitants acting strange.

The above plot description is vague because I myself am vague about what happens in the movie. The plot descriptions on IMDB and in the John Stanley book say they’re acting like zombies, but I certainly didn’t see anything that resembled either the voodoo or the Romero variety of zombie, though a few people seem distant. There’s a lady involved, of course, and there’s a lake, a deal of love-making, a mysterious house, and lots of talk. Unfortunately, the key to it all is hidden in that talk, and since my copy of the movie is in unsubtitled Italian, the key remains currently out of my reach. It uses sound effectively at times, has some genuinely moody moments, and does seem to be off the beaten path somewhat. But until I see a print I can understand, I have little to say.

For those of you following this series in the hope that I’ll have more to say about these movies than I sometimes do, I apologize. The fact of the matter is that the project is a bit on the expensive side, and it’s also time-consuming. As nice as it might be to hold off on reviewing these until I can find a copy in English, I would then have to watch a whole second movie to keep up with the series, plus take the trouble to actively hunt out new sources. If this project were my livelihood or my sole hobby, I might do so, but such is not the case. Maybe someday I’ll return to movies like this and be better able to describe them, but until that time, this rather vague coverage will have to do.