DEMONIA

1486: in the Sicilian town of Santa Rosalia, some nuns, devotees of the devil and engaged in blasphemous practices, were tortured and crucified by the locals. After 500 years, an archaeological expedition led by Professor Paul Evans (Brett Halsey) and his assistant Liza (Meg Register) arrives in Santa Rosalia to conduct excavations. After their arrival, several mysterious murders disturb the peace of the area, and Interpol Inspector Carter (none other than Lucio Fulci!) is tasked with conducting the investigations. Perhaps the demonic nuns have managed to return from the afterlife to seek revenge and spread terror again? Shameful ugliness that bears the signature of Lucio Fulci (a director who had accustomed us to works of much greater depth), "Demonia" had all the characteristics to be a good product: an intriguing screenplay, dignified actors like Brett Halsey and Meg Register, an adequate budget, and an original setting full of potential. Unfortunately, the film's production was plagued by a series of factors that irreparably compromised the final result. Not to mention that Fulci, annoyed by the continuous production difficulties, abandoned the film without editing it, leaving the final cut to be made (poorly) by others. Among the various problems that penalized the film, we can cite the disputes with the producer (who, according to the director, did not release all the promised money), some local mafiosi who forced the production to hire certain labor imposed by them, and, as the cherry on top, the poor relations with the inhabitants of the places where the shootings took place. In fact, the local population, with the parish priest and bishop at the helm, as soon as they found out what kind of film was being shot, began to boycott the work (and it is not surprising that the ecclesiastical world found a pinch of blasphemy in a truculent horror film that talks about nuns tortured and crucified because they are devoted to evil and with the hobby of orgies...). In "Demonia" we find many of the themes dear to Fulci, all of it sewn together rather poorly and without conviction. There is a good dose of gore moments, like the sequence of the man split in two or the scene where a woman suddenly realizes that her son is covered in blood, but their execution is pedestrian. This film is known more than anything for some pearls of undeniable trash value, like the specter of a nun who kills people with an underwater gun, a butcher who is attacked in his shop by some demonic quarters of beef, or the sequence in which a woman is torn apart by her cats, in a profusion of fake heads and poor kittens roughly thrown into the air. Not to mention that all the actors are dubbed, so we are faced with a characteristic Sicilian village where the inhabitants seem to have just come out of a theater diction course. This rich dish is offered to the viewer enhanced by an editing done with eyes closed and an extraordinary photography, which, due to the overexposure of the film, gives us unforgettable blurs, blur effects, and fogs strictly involuntary. In this film, Lucio Fulci plays what is considered his longest cameo (excluding "Un gatto nel cervello" of which he is the protagonist), in the role of an Interpol inspector: proof that he probably cared about this project at least at the beginning (although the question arises spontaneously: what does the International Police have to do with a pair of murders that occurred in a remote village in Sicily?). You will certainly have understood that we are talking about a deeply flawed film, whose modest craftsmanship is unfortunately underscored by the director's self-citation mania. In fact, Fulci inserts into what is perhaps his worst work, references to none other than "The Beyond": his most successful and most beloved film by fans. The protagonist of both films is named Liza, the opening credits of "Demonia" and "The Beyond" are wrapped in flames, and the scene of the torture and crucifixion of the nuns directly refers to that of the painter Zweick. It happens that whoever catches the references may inadvertently start making comparisons between the two works, and from this contrast "Demonia" cannot but come out with broken bones, proving to be even uglier than it already is. If you want to approach Fulci's cinema, do not start with this film.