A slow-building horror in the Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu fashion, L'Arcano Incantatore is set in 16th century Italy and follows a disgraced seminary student (Stefano Dionisi) as he becomes assistant to an excommunicated priest (Carlo Cecchi) who lives in an isolated country mansion, owns a library of forbidden tomes and is rumored to practice black magic.Premise is compelling, but the script gets fairly silly and lazy in the last act; secondary characters are either dispatched abruptly or never seen again. Cecchi is fine, but most of the picture is at the mercy of a slack performance by Dionisi. With his gaunt face and pale complexion he does *look* the part, but never emotes beyond a level of mild concern.Veteran director Avati makes an effective use of light and shadows, sound and silence. Avati has an interesting career; known for his bittersweet comedies (like the excellent Una Gita Scolastica), he ventures into the horror genre from time to time, most famously with La Casa Dalle Finestre Che Ridono.6/10

The Arcane Sorcerer is the third Pupi Avati film which I have seen. While it may not be my favorite (though it's at least as good as the other two), it is the best made. The film has a disgraced seminary student agreeing to serve as secretary for a defrocked priest. So odious is this former priest's reputation that villagers have been forbidden to look on him or speak to him directly. Appartently, it was an unhealthy interest in forbidden books about conquering death that forced the isolation of this former priest now known as the arcane sorcerer. The catch for the seminary student is that he must never reveal what goes on at the arcane sorcerer's villa. There will be severe consequences in this world and the next should he break his oath.The film has much to recommend it, good acting, cinematography, and set designs. I especially liked the library, candle lit hallways crammed floor to ceiling with ancient tomes. The plot also holds together better than in some of Avati's other films. The only problem is that pace is extremely slow. Most of the running time serves as build-up. The climax is intense! Then, the film ends. I did like The Arcane Sorcerer more than I did Avati's much loved (by others) The House with the Windows that Laughed.

The only film I'd seen from Pupi Avati prior to seeing this one was his excellent Giallo 'The House With the Windows that Laugh' and naturally, I had hoped that The Arcane Enchanter may be similar in quality to the earlier Giallo masterpiece. While by no means a bad film, The Arcane Enchanter doesn't portray the mystery and imagination nearly as well as the earlier film did. However, based on the strength of the two films I've seen from him; it's clear that Pupi Avati is a more than capable director, and The Arcane Enchanter is another (in terms of production values) high quality Italian horror film. The plot focuses on religion and black magic and the central character is Giacomo Vigetti. Giacomo is convicted of apparently trying to rape a young girl by the Papal State and is forced to flee. He takes refuge at the home of Arcano Incantatore; an ex-communicated priest. During his stay with the former priest, Giacomo soon realises the reason why he as thrown out of the church; the priest was practicing black magic...The film exudes a scintillatingly Gothic atmosphere that carries the film even when the plot takes a turn for the less interesting. The Arcane Enchanter is very much a slow burn film, and while sometimes there is enough mystery created to make the audience want to see what is going to happen next; sometimes there isn't, and the film unfortunately falls flat at those points. The themes of horror shown in the movie largely revolve around death and the mystery springs from the ambiguous way that the plot is presented to the viewer. There isn't much in the way of character building on show, and this can sometimes make it hard to really care about the mystery at hand, however. The way that Pupi Avati presents the scares without special effects is well done, although sometimes it feels like a little more was needed. The ending pretty much flows with the rest of the film in that it doesn't end with a bang, and neither does it really tie everything up. Overall, this is certainly a decent film; but unfortunately, unlike The House with the Windows that Laugh, it's not a great one.

An excellent horror movie, in my opinion, thanks to a lesson that appears to have been forgotten by Hollywood. There's no blood, no gore, and preciously few special effects.There's just a tight plot and three people in front of that deep mystery which is death. Obscure forces are at work around the main characters, but are they real or just in the characters' minds? Even in the final climax the viewer is left with this unanswered question for the viewer to ponder - as a good movie should do.