Exorcism (Jesús Franco)

Exorcism (Exorcisme)

1974

Director- Jesús Franco,

Cast- Lina Romay, Jesús Franco, Catherine Laferriere, Lynn Monteil

            Not be confused with the Paul Naschy film of the same name, this movie doesn’t actually have any exorcisms, at least not in the traditional sense.

            Anna and Rose are a pair of performance artists who work for an S&M themed magazine. They specialize in live performances of Satanic themed rituals with simulated torture and human sacrifices. They put on these shows for bored rich people who need their jaded sex drives kick started. The problem is they have attracted an unwanted fan.

            Vogel (played by Franco himself) is a writer for that same magazine and rumor has it that he is a defrocked priest. Well, the rumors are true, he was once a man of the cloth but now he takes an unwholesome interest in Anna (played by Franco’s real life longtime lover, Lina Romay). Vogel sees all the Satanic mumbo jumbo as real and starts picking off girls in the periphery of that social circle. He kidnaps them and murders them, sometimes torturing them as a part of their “exorcism”, all in the name of saving their souls. Eventually he works up the guts to go after Anna herself.

            Franco was perfect for the part of the former priest turned sexual pervert. I don’t want to speak ill of the dead, but he really looks like a creep in this film. Lina Romay is beautiful and vivacious, looking like an early goth icon with her long black hair.

            Exorcism could only have been made in the 70s with its mixture of Satanic fascination and pre-AIDS era swingers, who are the movies victims. The movie has a ton of sex and some of the torture scenes are quite prolonged, though they don’t approach anything close to the modern “torture porn” movies. It’s not a particularly scary movie but is a good example of the B grade psychological thrillers of that day.

            Franco’s movies were often re-released with different names after being re-edited to appeal to different audiences. This movie was heavily edited and re-released as Demoniac (not to be confused with the Jean Rollin movie Les Démoniaques). There is absolutely no reason to watch that version as literally half the movie is cut out including the vast majority of the sex and violence.