April 25: Bava Forever — Bava died on this day 43 years ago. Let’s watch his movies.

Mario Bava — or John Old — was the man who could make a studio backlot look like the gates of Gehenna. And while Lisa and the Devil was his heart and soul, it didn’t exactly set the box office on fire. But then The Exorcist happened, and suddenly every producer in Italy wanted their own pea-soup-spewing cash cow.

Producer Alfredo Leone had a masterpiece on his hands that nobody wanted to see, so he did the most exploitation producer thing imaginable: He asked Bava to chop it up, add some possession flavor and then he retitled it House of Exorcism. Now it was less of an art film and more, well, Exorcisty.

This flick is a Frankenstein’s monster of cinema. You’ve got the ethereal, dreamlike footage of Bava’s original cut smashed together with new scenes directed by Leone (and a helping hand from Lamberto Bava, aka John Old Jr.). To slap a name on this identity crisis, they credited Mickey Lion as the director.

Mario said, “Even though it bears my signature. It is the same situation, too long to explain, of a cuckolded father who finds himself with a child that is not his own, and with his name, and cannot do anything about it.”

So what is new? A lot. Enough to make you think that this is two movies joined together, which it totally is.

There’s a new framing device in which Father Michael (Robert Alda, father of Alan) is an exorcist trying to exorcise a demon from Lisa (Elke Sommer). She’s swearing more than Regan MacNeil, showing way more skin and also throwing up frogs. She’s also Elena, and all of Bava’s superior cut becomes a series of flashbacks to how she lost her mind, her life and her soul, eventually possessing Lisa.

Elena was stuck in an incestuous four-way relationship between her husband Max (Alessio Orano), a guy so impotent and tied to his mother’s (Alida Valli) apron strings it’s no wonder Elena looked elsewhere and found love — and some deep dicking — from her husband’s stepfather (Espartaco Santoni). It all ends in blood and with every in hell.

Somewhere in all of this, we have the priest get tempted by the ghost of his dead wife — she burned up in a car wreck — Anna (Carmen Silva), who is one of those Eurohorror women who seems like an android with a perfect body and fake eyelashes. Magic in its purest form. “Darling, don’t be embarrassed. You’re still a man. Take me.” You know, the devil works hard to convert those who have faith, but have you seen Carmen Silva? I get it. Man, I sure get it.

This feels like a weird U.S.-made exploitation rip-off of Lisa with bloodier deaths and a near-inserts level edit of Sylvia Koscina and Gabriele Tinti (and body doubles) getting it on. You know, I’m sure Gabriele Tinti was a good guy, but between this and him being married to Laura Gemser, I kind of despise the dude.

Spare a thought for poor Elke Sommer, who had to come back two years later just to contort on a hospital bed and projectile vomit neon green slime. It’s a far cry from the gothic beauty of the original, but there’s a greasy charm to it that you just can’t find in modern horror. I can’t help but kind of love the balls on this concoction of a movie.

Also: In Annie Hall, Alvy Singer (Woodie Allen) walks past a marquee playing Lisa and the Devil and Messiah of Evil, and he kind of scoffs. For this and so many more reasons, I hope Tisa kicked him right in the dick at Passover, and it was no accident.

You can watch this on YouTube.