The House of Exorcism

Lisa and the Devil was a film directed by Mario Bava, it had a limited cinema release in 1973 but was soon withdrawn by producer Alfredo Leone as he did not know how to market this strange, lyrical film. It sat on the shelf for a couple of years with no distributer interested in picking it up, so Leone decided to attempt to make some money back on his investment. Two years later he returned with one of the participants from the first film, Elke Sommer - along with Robert Alda and Carmen Silva, neither of whom appeared in Lisa and the Devil at all - and, with Bava's assistance, directed a batch of new, completely unrelated material. He then merged these new scenes in with parts from the original film. The resultant movie became known as The House of Exorcism. Like some other Italian films from the time like L'anticristo it clearly was designed to cash in on the success of The Exorcist, as it is basically a rip off of this film in many ways. Lisa and the Devil, on the other hand, had nothing to do with demonic possession and its story is completely unrelated. The biggest single problem with The House of Exorcism is that if you are already familiar with Lisa and the Devil it's very difficult disassociating the scenes from that movie from their original intent. It simply just makes you want to see them again in their original context. When I watch The House of Exorcism, it's the new bits that interest me; the stuff from Lisa is just simply distracting. The contrast in tone between the two sections of film is massive, where the stuff from Lisa is beautiful and fairly subtle; House of Exorcism is relentlessly coarse and goes for shock value. It's pretty much an exploitation movie and the sequences from Lisa and the Devil do not fit into its tone and story-line well at all. In fairness, it may work a lot better - maybe even quite well - if you have never seen the original film but I suspect most people going into this already have and that's essentially the problem. The new material is set mainly in a hospital where Lisa (Elke Sommer) is confined after being possessed by the Devil. A priest (Robert Alda) tries to exorcise her. The new scenes are typified by Sommer barking out obscenities at Alda. There's lots of green vomit, a vision of a beautiful naked woman and...frogs. The new stuff's not that bad really and would have no doubt have made an entertaining schlockfest if it had constituted the full movie. But, as it is, the majority of the run-time is made up of re-used material from Lisa and the Devil, which is distracting and useless if you have seen the original already. Nowadays, with the original film readily available, The House of Exorcism has become no more than a curiosity piece. Fun to watch for the added possession material but as a whole it doesn't work anymore.

Okay, so I saw 'House Of Exorcism' the re-edited version of Mario Bava's 'Lisa And The Devil' with the added cash in footage. I've heard great things about the original version, but I haven't yet had an opportunity to view it so I'm sticking with this, the "unauthorized" cut. Bava must have had mixed feelings about it seeing as his name has been removed as director. I can understand why, because I'm a little ambivalent about it myself. This is in many ways a confusing mess of a movie, but overall enjoyable enough and holds the interest until the end. Elke Sommer, who had previously worked with Bava on the uneven 'Baron Blood', plays an American tourist apparently possessed by the Devil. While being exorcised by a priest (Robert Alda), we cut to a series of events involving her being picked up hitch hiking and taken to a mysterious mansion populated by various nuts, not least of which is Leandro, the mysterious lollipop sucking butler (yep, you guessed it, Telly Savalas). This footage (recycled from the original 'Lisa And The Devil') is either hallucination or flashbacks or both, and Leandro may or may not be the Devil. It's all very hard to tell. Frankly, you won't even care. Even so, I enjoyed this movie even if it was incoherent most of the time. It may not be genuine Bava but it's a lot of fun, and I must admit I preferred it to 'Baron Blood'. Take from that what you will.

Blasphemous declaration: I prefer watching this re-edit than the original Lisa and the Devil. Well, I am not going so far as to suggest this is a better made film, just that I have some difficulties with the constant (although very pretty) dreamlike structure of the original. This version clearly comes under the heading of 'exploitation' and can therefore be ignored because of the extremes of language, sexuality and blasphemy on display. I just happen to feel that the editing together is remarkable and adds a little sense to the picture. It may not be a pretty sight but there is real vigorous here and Elke Sommer desires a medal for going back and performing those remarkable scenes. I realise I am upsetting not only fans of the original but at the same time fans of the original Exorcist. So be it, in my opinion, the original is what Bava intended and always hoped to get made but being magnanimous was able to assist in creating an alternative movie, perhaps more able to gain an audience. There again, it seems, maybe not.

"Lisa and the Devil" (1972) was dumb. "The House of Exorcism" (1975) is even dumber, which is unfortunate because it had the potential to use the "Lisa and the Devil" footage to create an interesting story. Instead we merely get Elke Sommer as a woman possessed by . . . well, we don't know, but she sure uses a lot of profanity and vulgarity. Robert Alda is a priest who sees Sommer collapse and realizes that she is possessed. The new footage is intercut with scenes from "Lisa and the Devil," so we assume that the story will somehow intersect with Lisa's present possession. Unfortunately about three-quarters of the way through the film we realize that no such suturing will occur, and we have only Lisa screaming profanities, spitting green vomit and frogs, and Alda looking pained. "The House of Exorcism" also features gore and nudity that was cut from "Lisa and the Devil," as well as adding nudity to the Alda sequence, making this version much more explicit than Bava's original 1972 film. In the end, Alda realizes that he shouldn't be trying to exorcise the spirits that possess Lisa but must instead exorcise the house in which all the evil occurred. He does so and the movie ends. As a film cashing in on "The Exorcist" devil-cycle, "The House of Exorcism" is mildly interesting. For entertainment purposes it's pretty lousy--despite Bava's beautiful cinematography. (By the way, Bava had his name removed from this film and instead used the pseudonym Mickey Lion.)

I remember well in 1975 when in High School a bunch of us went to see House of Exorcism-which we all thought was better than the much overrated The Exorcist. Many years later I got a video of what was called Lisa and the Devil, which I thought was the same film under a different title. However this is NOT the case: Lisa and the Devil and House of Exorcism are two different films. When I saw the Lisa and the Devil version it had nothing to do with the film of my youth, and I was quite disappointed as I found that version quite boring-there was no possessed Elke Sommer or the Robert Alda priest character (although Telly Savalas was marvellous in both versions). Luckily a recent DVD had BOTH versions, so I was able to see the original after many years. Unlike many of the reviews, I think House of Exorcism was the better of the two, and I am not alone, even though posted reviews seem to like the "Lisa" version better. NOW here comes the truth, which most people don't know. When the original film(Lisa and the Devil)was finished in 1973, it was shown to many distributors-none of whom thought it was any good. Two years later the "redone" version, called House of Exorcism, was made-using much of the same footage of the other film but now having Elke Sommer possessed by the devil and in hospital, and having Robert Alda as the priest who not only exorcises the devil from Elke, but also the house where she had stayed. The same distributors who had shown no interest in the other film now decided to go ahead with House of Exorcism-and the result was that it made millions (at a time when it was still only a dollar or two to see a film). The bottom line here is that millions of people went to see House of Exorcism, while nobody went to see Lisa and the Devil. So in conclusion I guess that all the distributors, as well as millions of filmgoers, preferred House of Exorcism!

The House of Exorcism (1973) is an interesting patch work film. After the disappointing attendance figures for LISA AND THE DEVIL, Producer Alfredo Leone re-shot and incorporated new footage into LISA AND THE DEVIL making the movie into an Exorcist knockoff. The ploy worked and Leone made his money back plus a profit. HOUSE OF EXORCISM is about a Bavarian woman named Lisa who's possessed by a restless spirit. The things that the spirit does and says puts Pazul/Linda Blair to shame. The spirit has a very foul mouth and uses creative dialog to motivate the priest into helping her. The movie is nowhere near the classic as LISA AND THE DEVIL but it's quite entertaining. However, the two movies are very different and they don't match together very well. One of the better Exorcist wannabes. Highly recommended for camp value.

source: The House of Exorcism

Moviecut—The House of Exorcism

Lisa and the Devil came before The Exorcist. Perhaps because the original was such a bore, it was re-edited as House of Exorcism, to cash in the "possession" thing. The result was the stupidest, most idiotic of all Exorcist clones. Elke Sommer or Robert Alda. Who should have been more ashamed for being part of this mess? The film, however, is almost redeemed by one scene. Priest Alda asks victim Sommer: "Where did you come from?" Her reply is something I can't repeat here, but it's so funny, it had me laughing out loud. Another great scene shows her regurgitating frogs!

Okay, I like this film. It's one of my guilty pleasures. In 1984, I saw this in a cinema on Grand Street in NYC on a double bill with Terror in the Aisles. I liked House of Exorcism, but even as I watched it, I realized something was up. It seemed disconnected in some way. I read about Lisa and the Devil, and finally got to see it at the Film Forum in NYC in the 1990s. I liked it. But something was .... missing. Flash forward to 2017, and I watched both Lisa and the Devil and House of Exorcism in the same night. Cha...you know what? House of Exorcism is, in some ways, better. More entertaining. Definitely more commercial. It's got Robert Alda, more naked women, frog spewing, gutter language, and some creepy new footage. Go for it!