Okay, I like this film. It's one of my guilty pleasures. In 1984, I saw this in a cinema on Grand Street in NYC on a double bill with Terror in the Aisles. I liked House of Exorcism, but even as I watched it, I realized something was up. It seemed disconnected in some way. I read about Lisa and the Devil, and finally got to see it at the Film Forum in NYC in the 1990s. I liked it. But something was .... missing. Flash forward to 2017, and I watched both Lisa and the Devil and House of Exorcism in the same night. Cha...you know what? House of Exorcism is, in some ways, better. More entertaining. Definitely more commercial. It's got Robert Alda, more naked women, frog spewing, gutter language, and some creepy new footage. Go for it!

This film just happened to be on one night and I felt like watching a horror film I had never seen before so I decided to give it a try. Granted, I am not overly fond of exorcism films and this movie clearly copies from The Exorcist movie; however, the film is also has a bit of a mystery film to it and the elements of other genres as well. Actually, it almost seems at times as if they were making two different films. One that is basically copying The Exorcist and another is more like one of those ambiguous haunted house tales like Web of the Spider and they met up and decided to slam the two films together and add Telly Savalas to both films to unify them. So, the movie is a bit of a mess as there are many questions left unanswered, but at the same time it does hook one into watching as one is not sure exactly where it is going. They clear up the strange mansion segment, but they really do not offer all that much insight as to why other things were occurring.The story has a tour group roaming the streets and checking out a mural. One of the group hears some music and follows it to a bizarre shop where two men are discussing a mannequin. The woman asks how much the box is playing the music and is told it is not for sale. She then gets a good look at one of the men who bears a striking resemblance to the devil that was in the mural she had seen earlier. She promptly leaves and the "devil" does something that cause her to collapse and act in a way that suggests that she is now possessed. A priest and a friend she has just met get her to a hospital where the friend promptly leaves and a character that seemed as if she was going to be important is never seen again. Meanwhile, the lady who is now essentially possessed is still roaming the streets, only the streets are very empty and she gets a ride with a quarreling couple and they end up at a strange house with a strange man and his mother and the butler who is the man at the shop, basically the devil. So we see the film on two fronts as the woman witnesses the strange happenings at the mansion and the priest fights to save her from her possession.The movie is a bit easier to watch thanks to the fact it is done on two fronts, but it also makes the film seem a bit of a mess. The friend looked like she would play an important role simply exits the film making her dialog and appearance in the film seem pointless. A scene with the priest also seems a bit strange and only in the film to show some nudity (granted it was some good nudity). The ending was a bit vague as it is one of those scenes that focus on something random and the camera freezes and you are like "huh?" Still, it does make you wonder where it is going with the two story arcs that are occurring, though one may feel disappointed at how they are finally connected. In the end, the movie is basically a combination of the very well known, The Exorcist and the lesser known film, Web of the Spider with Telly Savalas thrown in with his trademark sucker in tow.

The original Lisa and the Devil is lush and stylish but oddly pointless and dull story of the people who must to spend the night in the lush and stylish but dangerous Italian villa. Elke Sommer is the heroine, a tourist called Lisa, and Telly Savalas a Devil disguised as a butler. Later the new footage was added and the result is trashy and foul-mouthed La Casa dell'esorcismo (House of the exorcism), one of the many copies of the trashy and foul-mouthed plot less wonder The Exorcist. Lisa and the Devil is a movie worth of decent 6/10, House of the Exorcism (like the original The Exorcist) is garbage and only worth of lousy 2/10.

The House of Exorcism (1973) is an interesting patch work film. After the disappointing attendance figures for LISA AND THE DEVIL, Producer Alfredo Leone re-shot and incorporated new footage into LISA AND THE DEVIL making the movie into an Exorcist knockoff. The ploy worked and Leone made his money back plus a profit. HOUSE OF EXORCISM is about a Bavarian woman named Lisa who's possessed by a restless spirit. The things that the spirit does and says puts Pazul/Linda Blair to shame.The spirit has a very foul mouth and uses creative dialog to motivate the priest into helping her. The movie is nowhere near the classic as LISA AND THE DEVIL but it's quite entertaining. However, the two movies are very different and they don't match together very well. One of the better Exorcist wannabes.Highly recommended for camp value.