LISA AND THE DEVIL: Up All Night

Rating: 🍭🍭🍭🍭

As someone who frequents horror film discussions around the Internet, I’ve seen the term “elevated horror” crop up from time to time. In most cases, the term is simply a rather vaguely defined, and quite frankly pretentious, label bandied about by film critics who are simply too ashamed to admit that a horror film they liked was actually a horror film.

Admittedly, most of these kinds of films are not my cup of tea, not because they’re necessarily bad in a technical sense, but because I prefer horror more as a backdrop for creative imagery or narrative concepts rather than mostly droll meditations on existence utilizing horror movie set pieces and ideas (looking at you Hereditary). To me, a film like Mario Bava’s Lisa and the Devil (1973) strikes the perfect balance between surreal, atmospheric terror, strikingly colorful visuals, and (relatively) grounded ideas that aren’t lost in “arthouse for the sake of arthouse” storytelling.

The film follows the titular Lisa (Elke Sommer), a tourist wandering the streets of Toldeo, Spain. While there, she encounters a fresco depicting the Devil. After running into a man (Telly Savalas) resembling the Devil in the painting at a mannequin shop, Lisa flees only to be confronted by a gentleman who claims to be searching for her. In fright, she accidentally sends him tumbling down the stairs to his death. Fleeing the scene, she finds refuge with a couple whose car breaks down near a dilapidated villa. The group takes refuge in the home, presided over by the Countess (Alida Valli), her son Maximillion (Alessio Orano), and their butler, who is the same man Lisa met at the shop. Over the course of the night, Lisa begins to suspect that there is something darker lurking within the walls of the manor and slowly begins to lose herself in a nightmare of hallucinations, paranoia, and death.

Lisa and the Devil is often described as being the purest representation of Bava’s vision as a filmmaker since he was given complete creative control on the film following the success of 1972’s Baron Blood. It’s certainly got all the hallmarks of Bava’s fascinations: sinister aristocrats, gothic manors, surrealist plotting, and the implications of necrophillia he explored in The Whip and the Body, but taken to a much more disturbing level. In many ways, the viewing of the film is a lot like staring at a very detailed painting that has no clearly defined subject. There are multiple tangible pieces to it that we can understand, but the overall experience is abstract, frequently frustrating, but always captivating.

However, there is a running theme throughout the film, primarily one of the loss of control, utilizing competing notions of matriarchy and patriarchy, which are paralleled in the characters of Maximillion and Lisa, respectively. Clearly riffing on the Norman/Norma Bates relationship form Psycho, Maximillion is presented as a near Oedipal nutcase, constantly longing to break away from his mother’s control and find love with another woman, yet even in the midst of sexual throes, her voice is still in the back of his mind, eating away at him and feeding his insecurity. Conversely, Lisa is constantly being manipulated by or accosted by the men around her, from Maximillion trying to use her to “save” himself to the gentleman she accidentally killed to Savalas’ butler/Devil that seems keen on pulling everyone’s strings. The loss of control spirals to the ultimate loss: life. All these disparate characters’ fates converge in death and Savalas’ Devil is the literal pilot on their flight to the afterlife.

All of this abstractness is aided by Bava’s use of surreal, dreamlike cinematography. Bava’s most notable work was always steeped in gothic castles and the contrast of shadows with moody colors. However, Lisa and the Devil operates under a much more vibrant color palette, a mixture of stark whites and light pastels, from the character’s outfits to the rooms of the manor. The color composition reflects the darkness lurking behind the pristine walls of wealth and status. The mannequins and dummies are beautiful, yet reflect a sense of emptiness and lifelessness like the characters within the film. In essence, it’s a dream world teetering on the edge of a nightmare that’s about to consume it whole.

Sommer, who also appeared in Baron Blood, perfectly embodies the fragility of Lisa. Her performance is one of constant anxiety and timidity as if she’s on the edge of snapping at any moment. Alessio Orano is equally captivating as Maximillion, playing the character as simultaneously tragic and horrifyingly disgusting. However, the real show stealer is Savalas as the Devil butler. I’ve frequently thought of Savalas as “that guy who is NOT Yul Brynner,” but his performance here shows what a talent he really was. His deep, yet soothing voice and quirky mannerisms imbue evil with a sense of playful naughtiness, belying his more sinister nature. In Bava’s world, the Devil isn’t a hooved man with horns, but a charming manipulator who can seduce you with a witty line and a fondness for lollipops.

Lisa and the Devil is confounding yet spellbinding. No other film within Bava’s filmography comes close to capturing the feeling of a nightmare as this one. In an instant, we jump between space and time without a sense of logic or certainty of where we’ll end up next. All we know is that it will be truly terrifying.