Conclusion
Italian horror. Enough said.
Plot
Delightfully cheap and playfully morbid tale about a group of tourists who are forced to overnight at a haunted castle. Seven tourists are exploited according to their tastes for the seven deadly sins by a succubus with Nazi connections. The succubus also has a very poor attitude towards crafting monograms on her victims.
Review
Perhaps it is possible to find a deadly sin for each of Dr Timothy Leary's seven tongues of god?
- Lust answers The Awareness Question. How does man know? Through his body, his senses and his sensual experiences.
- Gluttony answers The Life Question. What is life? That which is sustained by consumption of one kind or another. No food, no life. Lots of food, lots of life?
- Greed answers The Ultimate Escape Question. How do I get out of here? By clinging to my surroundings. By avoiding anything except my surroundings. A kind of Zen escapement - escaping by not escaping at all.
- Sloth is an answer to The Human Being Question. Who is man? Ruler of the earth, crown of creation. Let someone else do it for me. Let the rich share their wealth with the poor.
- Wrath is an answer to The Ultimate Power Question. What is the basic energy of the universe? Anger is a release of energy and could be a vulgar display of power.
- Envy is an attempt to answer The Emotional Question. What should I feel about it? Resentment and jealousy, because there are haves and have nots.
- Pride is an answer to The Ego Question. Who am I? Perhaps this is based on legacy or class. An appeal to authority - your own authority.
Yet when you think about it, gluttony and greed are very similar. As is sloth. Those are all excessively selfish modes of behaviour, rooted in an irrational means of acting in your self-interest. Envy and pride could also be seen as two sides of the same coin, if you consider that envy is a reaction to bruised pride. That basically leaves us with greed, wrath and pride. What a poorly constructed list of sins.
The Devil's Nightmare is one of my top 10 favourite horror films to date. This is mostly because of the cinematography, which is usually exemplary in European films. Lots of lesbian love, buckets of blood and some truly cheesy moments compensate for some of the worst Nazi costumes I've ever seen on film.
Yes, you read that right: lesbian love scenes that almost put the GRRR in tiger, baby! The plot follows the oh-no-it-isn't-what-I'd-thought-oh-yes-it-is-what-I'd-thought-after-all format, which must've been a novelty in the seventies.
Director
Jean Brismeé.
Cast
Erika Blank, Colette Emmaneulle, Daniel Emilfork, Ivana Novak, Jean Servais.
Rating
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