Lost in Reincarnation

Black Magic Rites (Renato Polselli, 1973)

Many moons ago, I foolishly bought a Danish DVD of Renato Polselli's follow-up to his ultra sleazy giallo Delirum (1972) without realising there weren't any English subtitles for it. Black Magic Rites (1973), AKA The Reincarnation of Isabel, was way more obscure back then, and your host was desperate to check it out on account of its reputation of being completely insane. With complete naivety, I figured I could at least cobble together a semblance of the film's plot according to the actions on screen. No chance! Gave up very early into the film as I didn't have a clue what the hell was going on. Fast forward to the present day and Indicator Films has released a very lavish 4K UHD of the film; more importanly it has English subtitles! Turns out the film gods struck their cruel blow upon me once more as Black Magic Rites is still an incomprehensible film even with the subtitles.

I wasn't alone in finding Black Magic Rites a confusing experience, both critics, David Flint and Kim Newman, were equally perplexed by it when I rewatched it with their commentary. It became all the more amusing with them trying to keep their professional composure during the film's excessive moments of unbridled sleaze and gory sacrificial goings on. Stephen Thrower, AKA Jess Franco's #1 Stan, who can talk a good one regarding the Spanish pervy midget's softcore Eurotrash films being neglected cinematic masterpieces, was equally as befuddled with Polselli's opus as the rest of us. What is an absolute certainty, is the unified acknowlegment that Black Magic Rites is a thoroughly entertaining psychedelic acid trip for die hard fans of Italian exploitation cinema.

I wonder if Peter Strickland's fictional movie The Equestrian Vortex from Berberian Sound Studio (2012) was inspired by Black Magic Rites.

As far as the main plot goes, Black Magic Rites appears to revolve around a collective of vampires performing Satanic sacrifices to resurrect a buxom witch and Dracula's beloved known as Isobel (Rita Calderoni). With the aid of choppy editing, the viewer is repeatedly transported from the fourteenth century to the modern day (the 1970s, in this case), to the point you're flummoxed with what time period certain scenes are set. Equally confusing are the cast (many from Delirium) appearing in both eras as reincarnated descendents of the angry mob who witness Isobel's burning at the stake. Extremely out there seventies clothes and hairstyles also muddy the waters as you're still left wondering if the scene you're watching is set in the Middle Ages or the decade that taste forgot.

Despite all these bewildering factors, Black Magic Rites is a deeply alluring oddity for anyone vested in Italian horror: on the one hand it starts off as a retread of Mario Bava's The Mask of Satan (1960), AKA Black Sunday; while on the other, it's a hallucinogenic departure form any sense of normality. You're never really sure whether the red body stocking clad vampires are performing their sacrificial rituals in a dungeon below the film's gorgeous castle - the same one from Massimo Pupillo's Bloody Pit of Horror (1965) - or in some kind of dimensional limbo. They're my favourite scenes from the film; gruesome as they are, they look gorgeous thanks to their technicolour lighting and jet black backgrounds; bizarrely reminding me of a school disco. Stylistically, the film evokes the ethereal and erotica vibes found in Jean Rollin's works, and also the influence of celebrity Satanist Anton LaVey. Coincidentally, LaVey used to mingle with the actress Jane Mansfield, who was once married to the film's male lead Mickey Hargitay.

Italian horror tends to be perceived as part of the wild and wacky side of horror cinema, and in Black Magic Rites' case it's more than undeniable. I've seen more than my fair share of utterly batshit Italian horror and Polselli's film has to be one of the more out there offerings. Much of it is inexplicable, e.g. why does one of the characters have a hilarious facial twitch? Even the film's dialogue, which was also written by Polselli, is abstract; lines like, "Vampires need blood that's not contaminated by human semen" doesn't make a shred of sense. The only real restraint is Gianfranco Reverberi's melodic, yet tame score. Imagine if the ritual scenes had a similar dark hippie vibe like what Bruno Nicolai delivered for the cultist scenes from Sergio Martino's All the Colours of the Dark (1972).

It's not often when a genre film I can barely understand wins me over this way. Most tend to fail and come off as pretentious art house in sheep's clothing. Black Magic Rites is a phantasmagoric and captivating entry in genuine Italian horror canon, which explains why it's so appealing despite its incoherentness.