The Grim Cellar

(Original title: Riti, magie nere e segrete orge nel trecento)

1972, Italy, Directed by Renato Polselli

Colour, Running Time: 98 minutes

DVD, Region 2, Redemption, Video: Letterbox 1.66:1, Audio: Mono

Several hundred years ago Isabel (Rita Caldana) was burned at the stake while her lover (the Italian Arnold Schwarzenegger, Mickey Hargitay) looks on helplessly. In the present day a group of Satanists led by the descendant of Isabel’s lover attempt to resurrect her still rotting corpse through sacrifice of not-so-innocent victims, generally taken from some sort of gathering that appears to be taking place in a nearby castle (I think).

How do you sum up a plot that comes across as entirely incomprehensible? I’m not sure but I don’t think it matters so much in this case: it’s a psychedelic whirlwind of insane events and imagery that just has the viewer sitting there shaking his/her head at the fact that anything like this was ever committed to celluloid. There is plenty of nudity and some of the strangest characters ever created - one particularly potty woman is found hysterical on the stairs after supposedly being assaulted by a monster with ‘green hair, like all monsters’ (???) that nobody, including us, has ever seen. There’s something to do with vampirism in here too - apparently there are some family ties to Dracula even claimed along the way. Even as far as Euro Horror is concerned this film is bonkers, but sort of works as an escape into psychologically unbalanced surrealism and is helped if your perception is chemically manipulated at the time (in my case, inebriation). The late Polselli has done some interesting work to be honest - his film Delirio Caldo/Delirium (1972, also featuring Caldana and Hargitay) is pretty good and much more comprehensible. Previously he also made a more conventional Italian gothic horror with L’Amante del Vampiro/Vampire and the Ballerina (1960).

For this (now old) disc Redemption apparently ultrasonically cleaned the print before creating a new digital master - apart from an excess of dirt/damage visible throughout it doesn’t look too bad considering the source, being moderately detailed, and is probably as good as it will look (put it this way: I can’t see Criterion doing an extensive restoration any time soon). Plus we get the Italian language soundtrack with English subtitles.  If you like Euro Horror and don’t mind wayward plots that make no sense you might get something out of the film - it can be picked up cheaply from the US as Reincarnation of Isabel or in the UK as Black Magic Rites; the film is the same in both cases but the UK disc has a few more (unrelated) extras.