Normally I would not review a different cut seperately, but with this movie things are most definately different. "Lisa e il diavolo" is the original Italian title that was first translated into English as "Lisa and the devil", and should have been released in 1972. It was the one movie that Mario Bava put most of his work into, his final great movie, where everything should have been the way he wanted it to be. However, due to some problems with finding potential buyers, producer Alfredo Leone forced Mario Bava into editing the movie. This was not because of bad critics - everyone at the filmfestivals who saw the movie was excited, however noone was in the market. Leone acted like an businessman, analysed the market and jumped on the train that was currently hyped. And that of course was "The Exorcist"; so Leones vision: Let's turn the movie into an Exorcist movie. So even years later after the movie was already finished, Leone reassembled the cast, and made them shoot additional scenes that should alter the movie entirely. What used to be a nightmare like reallity is this time turned into the wild dreams of a girl (Lisa) posessed by the devil. So we get as new scenes how she gets possessed, then how she is deliverd to a hospital, how she turns crazy and how finally priests are gathered to exorcise the demon in her. And while this is happening, we always cut into scenes of the old movie showing her nightmare-visions. It is a totally different movie, and it is totally bad. The atmosphere that Bava created with his original is totally broken, the new scenes that mostly consists of disgusting pictures, obscenities, and nudity are bait-like and where shot despite the explicit whishes by Bava to not have such scenes in his movie (he actually - as a director - left the room when these scenes where shot, because he wanted no part of it).
What we end up with is a movie that is more direct than Bavas original, easier to grasp, with fewer wearisome lenghts, but also movie that loses nearly its entire atmosphere, that has no originallity anymore, no metaphors or symbolism, plus some things that are actually never said in the original movie but are implied for the viewer to find out himself, are simply put into the dialog by just watching Lisa and the Devil the first time I did not grasp that this movie has for example a part that is about impotence. So in the end this movie gets irrelevant, and that is something that even the critics realized - Leones vision backfired - instead on hopping on to the Exorcism train and giving the people yet another movie they would want to see, people realized it to be a blatant rip-off and therefore was denounced.
That already being bad enough, Bavas original vision was litrally butchered, and he was not okey with it (he actually changed his name on the credits to 'Mickey Lion' because of this), and never even saw this version which was the only one in cinemas. He still read the critics and those made him really sad - it should have been a master piece and his final great work before retiring, but in the end it became a cold and soulless movie created for just financial profit-making. The sadest thing: Mario Bava did not even see his original version being released - he died with the knowledge of nearly no one having seen his masterwork (except for France, where it was released in the original cut at cinemas, but for the home release also only this cut was released) and thinking that no one will ever see it. Only in 2012 where for the first time both versions released - and the original version is much better rated by critics and is today seen as the far superior version.
Review by pygospaVIP 3BlockedParent2017-06-10T01:03:12Z
Normally I would not review a different cut seperately, but with this movie things are most definately different. "Lisa e il diavolo" is the original Italian title that was first translated into English as "Lisa and the devil", and should have been released in 1972. It was the one movie that Mario Bava put most of his work into, his final great movie, where everything should have been the way he wanted it to be. However, due to some problems with finding potential buyers, producer Alfredo Leone forced Mario Bava into editing the movie. This was not because of bad critics - everyone at the filmfestivals who saw the movie was excited, however noone was in the market. Leone acted like an businessman, analysed the market and jumped on the train that was currently hyped. And that of course was "The Exorcist"; so Leones vision: Let's turn the movie into an Exorcist movie. So even years later after the movie was already finished, Leone reassembled the cast, and made them shoot additional scenes that should alter the movie entirely. What used to be a nightmare like reallity is this time turned into the wild dreams of a girl (Lisa) posessed by the devil. So we get as new scenes how she gets possessed, then how she is deliverd to a hospital, how she turns crazy and how finally priests are gathered to exorcise the demon in her. And while this is happening, we always cut into scenes of the old movie showing her nightmare-visions. It is a totally different movie, and it is totally bad. The atmosphere that Bava created with his original is totally broken, the new scenes that mostly consists of disgusting pictures, obscenities, and nudity are bait-like and where shot despite the explicit whishes by Bava to not have such scenes in his movie (he actually - as a director - left the room when these scenes where shot, because he wanted no part of it).
What we end up with is a movie that is more direct than Bavas original, easier to grasp, with fewer wearisome lenghts, but also movie that loses nearly its entire atmosphere, that has no originallity anymore, no metaphors or symbolism, plus some things that are actually never said in the original movie but are implied for the viewer to find out himself, are simply put into the dialog by just watching Lisa and the Devil the first time I did not grasp that this movie has for example a part that is about impotence. So in the end this movie gets irrelevant, and that is something that even the critics realized - Leones vision backfired - instead on hopping on to the Exorcism train and giving the people yet another movie they would want to see, people realized it to be a blatant rip-off and therefore was denounced.
That already being bad enough, Bavas original vision was litrally butchered, and he was not okey with it (he actually changed his name on the credits to 'Mickey Lion' because of this), and never even saw this version which was the only one in cinemas. He still read the critics and those made him really sad - it should have been a master piece and his final great work before retiring, but in the end it became a cold and soulless movie created for just financial profit-making. The sadest thing: Mario Bava did not even see his original version being released - he died with the knowledge of nearly no one having seen his masterwork (except for France, where it was released in the original cut at cinemas, but for the home release also only this cut was released) and thinking that no one will ever see it. Only in 2012 where for the first time both versions released - and the original version is much better rated by critics and is today seen as the far superior version.