The Reincarnation of Isabel (1973)

REVIEW
There have been a few films in cinematic history that are known to be two or more films combined. Al Adamson's Blood of Ghastly Horror and Bill Rebanes Monster A Go-Go, for instance. I don't know for sure if The Reincarnation of Isabel is one of those, but if you watch it carefully--like keeping your face close to the microwave to watch your Michelina's Salisbury steak cook--Isabel seems to be quite the patchwork girl.

The plot, so far as I can make out, is about an Italian village nestled in some gorgeous valley, where a possessed witch was burned alive a century or two or three ago. Now a wealthy man has just purchased half of the village's castle and is moving in with his daughter. In the other half of the castle is a sinister-looking scholar and his hunchback assistant. The man throws a party in the castle--there are plenty of rooms--inviting primarily pretty schoolgirls from the girl's school next door, as well as a few normal people. Turns out all of these people in the castle are dopplegangers of the people who killed the witch way back when.

Also, somewhere in the castle--sort of--is the real Isabel, with a huge hole in her chest; and she needs blood to revive. Fortunately, a cult has built up around her, and they're ready to bring her beautiful girls from the party.

Then strange things start happening. Each of the men seems to be a vampire and not a vampire; the girls seem to be dead and then not dead; they're witches, and then not witches; characters are in the past and then they're in the future; and there's a Ron Jeremy look-a-like having sex with two of the schoolgirls that never connects with the rest of the plot. It's just what you're thinking: there's a timewarp in the castle, and there are evil dopplegangers for all the castle's denizens, existing in some place outside of time and space, and...and... no, it's not my fault it's not making sense, it's because this is likely two movies edited together.

Stylistically, there is a lot going on--a lot of sound and fury, possibly. Polselli is trying to out-Bava the master, for one: it's gels-ahoy in this film! In some shots, each character in frame is lit with a different-coloured key light.

Then there's the editing. For anyone who has seen Nicolas Roeg's earliest pictures (Performance, Don't Look Now), the style will be familiar. Moments disconnected in space, possibly in time, are edited together in very quick cuts; sequences that should be fluid are intercut with shots of something apparently unrelated. After seeing the whole film, I still think it's unrelated.

Maybe, just maybe, rewatching this film will yield answers. I'm not sure. It's a conundrum that reminds me in many ways of Mulholland Dr. and INLAND EMPIRE, but without that intuitive knack--and without the brand-name--that Lynch brings, which inspires deeper digging. Another title for this film is Rites, Black Magic and Secret Orgies in the Fourteenth Century, which makes it sound like a scholarly text--something Frances Yates might have written. Perhaps this is a clue to what's really going on in the film. Perhaps it's more ambitious than I'm giving it credit for; but probably not.

Polselli attempts to combine Bava's supernatural films with the sleaziness of, say, Umberto Lenzi, sprinkled with some high-concept plot-points and editing. While I'm not convinced The Reincarnation of Isabel is a masterpiece or even successful overall, I don't regret having watched it. If you don't mind being puzzled, sometimes bored--particularly by the underwhelming scenes of terror--this is a fascinating oddity in the repertoire of '70s Italian horror that might be worth checking out.

FACTS
Director - Renato Polselli
Starring - Mickey Hergitay, Rita Calderoni
1973
98 min.

WHERE TO GET IT
It has been released on DVD by Redemption and is available on NetFlix.

TIDBITS
One of this film's many titles is The Ghastly Orgies of Count Dracula. Actually, the film has nothing at all to do with Dracula and there's not a single orgy to be found, save the threesome with Pseudo-Ron Jeremy.

In the scene in which the Pseudo-Ron Jeremy ravishes the girls, there is a shot that shows one of the girls supposedly talking to him on the bed--the mirror behind her clearly shows a completely different man. Two films merged together or just a mistake?