EXORCISM (1975)
aka Exorcismo
Article 2988 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing Date: 7-13-2009
Posting Date: 10-19-2009
Directed by Juan Bosch
Featuring Paul Naschy, Maria Perschy, Maria Kosty
Country: Spain

A woman gets possessed after taking part in a Satanic ceremony. A priest tries to exorcise her.

I’ve seen enough imitations of THE EXORCIST now to know what to expect from them. And I’ve seen enough Paul Naschy movies to know what to expect from them as well. In either case, the expectations are not high. So when I say this Paul Naschy rip-off of THE EXORCIST doesn’t live up to my expectations, I’m not saying I expected it to be as good as its model, but that it didn’t even meet the low expectations I went in with. Quite frankly, the first three-quarters of the movie are a muddled bore; it’s almost as if it doesn’t even want to be a horror movie, but a mystery, and not a good one at that. Oh, it throws in some nude cavorting at the Satanic mass, but for the most part, it’s talk, and not very interesting talk. The possession only really begins in the last reel, and that pretty much unfolds as you’d expect, though that’s not to say it’s effective. I can appreciate that the movie was trying to be low-key (which is something you don’t expect in a Paul Naschy film), but it ends up merely dull.