Before Dario Argento spooked the world with Suspiria, before Lucio Fulci unleashed hell in The Beyond, there was Mario Bava. The renowned Italian filmmaker known primarily for his horror films has influenced a variety of filmmakers both in his native country and across the Atlantic in America. Ranging from suspensful giallo flicks to more supernatural ghost stories, Bava's extensive filmography has become greatly celebrated in the horror community. While there has been countless amounts of praise for his films such as A Bay of Blood and Black Sunday, one of his more forgotten films is the polarizing Lisa and the Devil. One of Bava's more surreal films, Lisa and the Devil borrows aspects from a variety of different horror subgenres, while at the same time transcending them all. The film begins straightforward enough, with a young tourist named Lisa (Elke Sommer) getting lost in the Spanish city of Toledo and winding up at an old villa where nothing is as it seems. While the premise sounds simple enough, Lisa and the Devil is anything but.
Lisa and the Devil was a sort of passion project of Bava's and in 1973, he finally found the means to make the film with little studio interference. Producer Alfredo Leone gave Bava complete creative control over the film, allowing him to bring to life his dream. That's essentially what watching Lisa and the Devil feels like, a dream. From the moment Lisa finds herself lost in the ancient city of Toledo, we feel as though we are being dragged down the rabbit hole into Bava's nightmarish wonderland, but that's just the beginning. The more Bava's dark tale unravels, the more dreamlike this world begins to feel, and by the time it all comes to a close we are left to interpret what exactly just happened. Essentially, the film sees Lisa arrive at this old gothic villa where she meets the Countess (Alida Valli), her son Maximillian (Alessio Orano), and their enigmatic butler Leandro (Telly Savalas). Maximillian soon begins to mistake Lisa for his old lover Elena, believing she is a reincarnated version of her. For a while things are pretty straightforward, Lisa gets stranded at the villa, a few people die, and it looks as though the film will take a similar route to The Mummy with Maximillian using Lisa to resurrect his dead lover. However, the appearance of a mysterious mustachioed man and the enigmatic motives of the butler Leandro lead this film down a very little route.
Still with me? Grand. So what makes this film so great you ask? Well, first of all, the atmosphere. As Bava has frequently demonstrated, he is a master of creating atmosphere. This is first evident here when Lisa finds herself lost in Toledo, strolling hopelessly through its ancient streets. The entire sequence feels incredibly unsettling, despite the fact that it is set during the day. The sense of isolation that constantly follows Lisa as she attempts to find her way out of the old city is highly unsettling, and there is this consistent sense of hopelessness as she struggles to find her way back. This was an excellent way for Bava to open the film as, not only does the atmosphere grab the audiences attention, but it also acts as the transition from our world into Bava's dream world. Lisa even passes through a small doorway leading into the backstreets of Toldeo in a scene very reminiscent of Alice in Wonderland. The suspense is consistent throughout, and pays off wonderfully during some of the films death scenes where Bava harks back to his earlier giallo films. One of the most memorable is the scene where Maximillian murders one of the other characters by caving their face in. Bava shoots this sequence from the floor, and we watch as the screen fills up with the victims blood as his head is smashed, it's one of the films most grizzly yet rewarding moments. This is by far Bava's most atmospheric film, and it's only enhanced by the sense of mystery surrounding the character of Leandro.
This brings me to the most interesting aspect of the film, Leandro, or the eponymous devil. Played by Telly Savalas, aka T.V. detective Kojak, Leandro is the true highlight of the film and is the focal point of all its mystery. While he is not a central character, Leandro is an ever present force through out who is with Lisa from the beginning right until the end. Throughout the film, we see him wander through the villa carrying out strange tasks involving mannequins, however his motives are generally kept secret. While it's never explicitly stated, the general consensus among critics is that Leandro is the devil, this is hinted at in the beginning where Lisa draws comparisons between him and a painting of the devil she saw in Toledo. While this is not built upon much throughout the film, there are a number of moments that reinforce this idea. Throughout the film we see Leandro interact with these mannequins that resemble the characters, at one point we even see him use the mannequin of the countess to trick her son into thinking she had returned from the dead. Many believe that the mannequins represent the films characters and how Leandro, as the devil, is capable of manipulating and controlling them. The ending almost confirms this theory, as Lisa boards her plane home to safety she realises that things are far from over as the pilot reveals himself to be..you guessed it, Leandro.
Many believe that Leandro was behind everything all along, manipulating the characters into repeating their ill-fated lives over and over again, the fact that he repairs one of the dead characters mannequins reinforces this idea. So while we've been watching Lisa on her dreamlike journey, in reality Leandro was the central character acting as puppet master to the rest of the characters inside some twisted version of purgatory. By the time the credits begin to roll, we are left to reflect on what we have just watched. Was the film a dream? Were Lisa and the other characters dead all along? Was Leandro the devil? Unfortunately, we have never gotten any decisive answer for reasons I will address soon, but that sense of uncertainty is part of the beauty of this film. Right from the get go Bava presents us with a very unconventional film, it's a surreal tale immersed in mystery and uncertainty. For Bava to present us with a conventional ending would have taken away from the films mystery, it would have been out of place, if he wanted to give us a straightforward ending he would have told a straightforward story. Instead we are left to ponder the films events, and for me that is the real beauty of Lisa and the Devil, it presents you with all these different pieces and leaves you to piece the puzzle together.
So why isn't the film so widely talked about in comparison to some of Bava's more conventional horror films? Well, upon its original release, Lisa and the Devil was a commercial flop and only received a limited release over in the US, this prompted producer Alfredo Leone to make some changes to the film. Leone convinced Bava to alter the film into copycat of sorts of The Exorcist in order to cash in on the latters success. New footage was shot, old footage was cut, and the entire plot was changed into an exorcism story, much to Bava's disappointment. Bava eventually left the film entirely which was eventually released under the name The House of Exorcism. While I have not seen this version of the film, the reviews are less than favourable. Bava's passion project faded into obscurity with few being aware of Lisa and the Devil's existence, then in 1980, Bava unfortunately passed away. Three years later however, Lisa and the Devil resurfaced for a whole new generation to discover as it was finally released in its full version. Bava's passion project was saved, but unfortunately he never lived to see its return.
It's an upsetting thought that Mario Bava died thinking that the film was a failure, the fact that it was supposedly his most personal film makes it all the more unfortunate. However, Bava's legacy lives on, and Lisa and the Devil has gained an immense cult following over the years. It is an interesting film that disregards the idea of a conventional narrative in a way that not a lot of horror films did at the time. While it does present itself initially as a straightforward story, Bava constructs a complex, dreamlike narrative that leaves many things up for interpretation. It is a film oozing with atmosphere, soaked in blood, and full of twists and turns. On top of all that, Telly Savalas' devilishly camp performance as Leandro may just be one of the greatest onscreen versions of the devil I've ever seen. So if you're a fan of horror and are looking for something different, something that will chill you to the bone, something that will leave you pondering for days on end, then I highly recommend Lisa and the Devil.
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