Sex of the Witch (1973)

Title	Il sesso della strega
Origin	Italy, 1973
Genre	Giallo
Director	Elo Pannacciò
Starring	Susanna Levi, Camille Keaton, Franco Garofalo
Music	Daniele Patucchi
Blurb	-

Angelo Pannacciò is one of the more obscure Italian directors, but any Euro-cult fan who sees his film Cries and Shadows will soon want to see another one. And here is another one, Sex of the Witch, made the previous year. Though superficially sharing a theme with The Shad (a bizarre melting pot of teenage possession and supernatural lesbian rape) this title largely eschews horror for more traditional giallo territory.

We start off with a priest being chauffeured through the Italian countryside. Is he going to an exorcism? I hope so. The accompanying laconically jangling theme tune is engaging if rather incongruous. And when the director's credit appears he's the only one to have his name in that big chunky "cake-slice" Seventies typeface. Things are looking promising.

Well, it turns out it wasn't an exorcism after all. The priest arrives at the mansion of Sir Thomas Hilton to administer the last rites as the patriarch lies upon his deathbed. Surrounded by his extended family of nephews and nieces, his consciousness slowly fading, Sir Thomas muses upon his life, and the callow generation that will succeed him.

Impotently he rails against their shallow morals, their alienation from their past, and the hopelessness of their future (Pannacciò has an inexplicable penchant for lengthy sermonising in his screenplays). Typical sentiments of the older generation these may be, but in this case he demonstrably has a point. Even as these thoughts pass through his mind the manservant and the maid are attempting to copulate in the very mausoleum into which his body will soon be entombed!

So to the reading of the will, and here we have an old-fashioned Christie-esque motive for murder. The Hilton patrimony is to be distributed amongst his descendants (apart from the pointedly disinherited daughter Evelyn, and in addition to the family lawyer Boskin, to everyone's disgust), each receiving an equal share of the remaining family fortune as they attain the age of thirty. Given time to reflect on the implications, anyone of the age of, ooh say twenty-nine years and ten months, may start to see their future as rather uncertain.

The youngsters of this family seem unpromising as prospective killers. Not one of this litter of neurasthenics and consumptives looks capable of bludgeoning anyone to death without having an asthma attack and having to go home. Nevertheless, a murder is soon committed, and a detective is called in to investigate.

What about the other suspects? Aunt Evelyn (Jessica Dublin) for example? It's always a bad sign to be called Evelyn in an Italian film, and given that furthermore she runs a herbal medicine shop in a film with "witch" in the title, it's as well to monitor her activities very closely.

Then there's the lawyer Boskin (Gianni Dei), according to the cousins a homosexual, despite plenty of evidence to the contrary. And the wonderfully shifty, golfball-eyed manservant Tony (Franco Garofalo) who seems to spend his entire working day trying to get inside the maid's saucy knickers, not without success. Finally, being ready-primed for silliness, we mustn't overlook the animal kingdom, the family having recently acquired a large and vicious-looking dog.

Largely unperturbed by the violent death of one of their number, the brothers, sisters and cousins go about their business (whatever that is, as none of this bunch appears to have a job), and lazily pursue romantic entanglements within and around the ancient decaying Hilton mansion in the sunny Worcestershire countryside (clearly the part of Worcestershire known as "Little Italy", due to its Mediterranean climate and the preponderance of Fiats and Alfas on the roads - at this time Italian cinema often still pretended, for obscure reasons, that its thrillers were set in England, even if as in this case it meant no more than changing the names and featuring the occasional right-hand drive vehicle).

The most notable member of the cast is Camille Keaton, playing Ann, the shy, withdrawn, and dare I say it slightly tapped, family beauty. As usual Camille sleepwalks through the role in the most adorable fashion. Occasionally she speaks a few words, and these are accepted as being appropriate to the situation.

All the while the atmosphere is low-key and dreamy. The camera often keeps its distance, allowing the characters to open up as if unprompted. Opportunities for relatively restrained scenes of nudity are never missed. The typically repetitive but infectious keyboard score is sometimes light, sometimes tense, and strangely effective as a coherent whole. And director Pannacciò proceeds with all the confidence one would expect of an 'Elo Antonioni.

Which would be all very well if he wasn't in fact a complete hack, happy to stoop so low as to splice in a nightclub scene from a completely different film in the expectation that we won't notice, or at least won't care. The cast can barely act, the dialogue is banal, and the ideas dim-witted. The production design is of amateur dramatics standard, with only the family mausoleum being an impressive original location.

But only a select contemporary audience chooses to follow cinema like this. Such pretention and incompetence is what we expect, even hope for, and it is good.

So how is this story to move along? The detective (Donald O'Brien) is of the standard-issue clueless giallo type, only there to summarise the plot and stir things up a little by arresting the wrong person.

Plot points are introduced absolutely at random. Strangers are continually turning up at the door and being admitted to the house without declaring their business or even stating their name. It is revealed that Sir Thomas made a breakthrough in genetic engineering so startlingly revolutionary that only the most far-seeing of science fiction writers would dare to contemplate it. The police inspector remarks that this was very clever of him.

And then Boskin broaches a delicate subject with Susan (Susanna Levi), the only member of the family with her head remotely together. Apparently, when she was a child, Aunt Evelyn injured her in an intimate area, leaving a scar. Casually dropped in, seemingly innocuous, this comes across as a real kink. It's even relevant to the storyline and not, as one reviewer who ought to know better suggested, just an excuse to watch Susan fondling her breasts in the mirror!

More than this I will not reveal, except to note that the resolution of the plot is even more ridiculous than I ever dreamt it could be, and that it is all wrapped up with a coda that is as delightful as it is outlandish. I enjoyed it a lot.

Clip for download

A montage to set the scene, including some nudity. Note that we see the killer's face surprisingly early. This isn't the spoiler it appears to be as the revelation leaves us none the wiser.

http://rapidshare.com/files/235057255/Camille-Keaton-in-Sex-of-the-Witch-1.avi
(5:16 minutes, 368x208, 21.6MB)

Ratings

Quality: 3/10   Fun: 8/10

Review copy

Publisher	Unlicensed
Format	DVD, PAL 4:3 (2.35:1 letterbox)
Certificate	VM 18 (Italy)
Image	Sub-sub VHS, ragged border, but watchable. Italian language with good fan subtitles.