Devil's Nightmare [1972] [DVD]

Lost in a dim forest, a group of seven tourists on a bus make their way to a lonely castle that is, by lucky chance, prepared to receive guests. Their host is the Baron von Rhoneberg, a successful alchemist and ex-Luftwaffe general with a past. The castle is also inhabited by two ticked-off servants and a beautiful and mysterious female who happens to be a nymph of Satan, a succubus. After dinner, the six of herd begin to make complete pigs out of themselves -- fornicating in the hallways, attempting to steal the Baron's gold and to eat him out of house and home. Not to worry, one by one each of the tourists meets gruesome death at the hands of the succubus that parallels the seven deadly sins -- lust, avarice, lust again, gluttony, and being a cranky jerk (wait, that's five, no three, never mind). Or do they? Although a common complaint about the Devil's Nightmare, the logical structure of the narrative is actually fairly sound (watch it again! -- maybe if the seminarian woke up with a shout?). Highly atmospheric with some cool lab scenes, this film really delivers the chills. The tameness of the murders -- poison, a pit of gold dust, guillotine, iron maiden, exfenestration -- is offset the over-the-top relish with which the succubus commits them. The eerie facial talents of the (no, I mean really) exquisite Erica Blanc as she morphs from seductress to succubus, sexbomb to slayer. Daniel Emilfork, one of Frederico Fellini's stock weirdoes, is the height of creepy as the Prince of Darkness in what is definitely an homage to Bergman's Death. Like Orson Welles in The Third Man, his screen appearances are brief but his presence remains palpable throughout. Veteran French actor Jean Servais is suitably distressing as the cursed scion of the von Rhoneberg family. Video quality is good overall with some scratches and color-flattening during the main titles and around the reel changes (check out the trailer at the end to see the quality Redemption had to work with). Audio quality ranges from good to excellent (especially during the "gluttony" scene) with a far-out musical score by Alessandro Alessandroni. DVD contains the original, somewhat more in-your-face, Italian soundtrack on the second audio channel. Print also contains the prolonged, heavy lesbian sequence excised from earlier releases. A real find; definitely suited to repeated viewing.

Devil's Nightmare is a pretty impressive Belgian gothic horror film from 1971. The movie begins with a Nazi officer's wife giving birth during the collapse of the Third Reich; when he finds out the child is a girl, the officer, Baron von Rhoneberg, is rather displeased and shows his unhappiness in a pretty compelling way. Then we jump to the present day to find seven tourists forced to seek a night's shelter at the castle of von Rhoneberg (apparently Belgium had no hotels in 1971). Personally, the sight of the castle door opening all by itself would be enough to convince me to just sleep on the bus, but the seven tourists all rush inside to escape a sudden rainstorm. Along with the melancholy and mysterious Baron, the guests are welcomed by a sour puss of a serving lady and a rather grim butler type who has served the Baron since World War II. This guy delights in telling the guests just who died in what way and in what year in each of the bedrooms he assigns them. The tourists are not exactly rays of sunshine themselves. There is a greedy woman and her cheating husband, an ornery old man, a seminarian studying to become a priest, a pretty disgusting tour guide, a lazy blonde lady, and an especially lovely flirt whose hobby is collecting men. The castle is a perfectly gothic little setting, featuring an attic with a good selection of implements of torture, dark and intricate hallways, gloomy towers and balustrades, an alchemist's lab, etc.-basically everything a spooky old castle needs to have. Later that night, a sultry redhead arrives in the form of Erika Blanc, whose character turns out to be a little unusual. Before all the guests turn in for the night, they are naturally told the story of the ancient von Rhoneberg curse, a large part of which deals with each family member's eldest daughter being a succubus. After a good hour crafting the proper atmosphere for the film, characters finally start dying, each death patterned on one of the seven deadly sins. This succubus doesn't do the things a succubus is supposed to do, never going farther than a little flirting with the priest in training, but I suppose the results are what really count. Having a priest in the way presents something of a challenge, but Satan is more than read to step in if problems arise.
I wouldn't call this film scary at all, nor is it too graphic (except for the disgusting scene wherein we have to watch the tour guide eat). The succubus' facial expressions when she is exerting her power are overdone to the point of being sort of silly, but Satan knows how to play his hand close to the vest. There is some light nudity and just a little female hanky-panky, which I was a little surprised to find in a movie from 1971. Erika Blanc is a strikingly sultry lady who lights up the screen, thanks in large part to the film's costume designer, but I find Ivana Novak even easier on these eyes of mine. The atmosphere of the movie is quite dramatic, with the story of the curse working in hand in hand with the great and properly gothic look of the mysterious old castle, and the distinctive organ music that is forever playing in the background really helps establish the proper mood for infernal goings-on here. The ending seemed as if it would leave me a little disappointed, but a nice touch at the last minute won me over. All told, this is an excellent example of foreign, campy gothic horror that I for one quite enjoyed.

Mainstream critics made much of Seven (1995, aka Se7en) for its "innovative" twist on the serial killer oeuvre: A killer who took inspiration from the Seven Deadly Sins.

Not so innovative.

Innovative to big Hollywood studios. Innovative to ignorant mainstream critics. But for those who follow indie, low-budget, and foreign horror ... been there, done that.

More precisely, it was The Devil's Nightmare that did it. Not with a serial killer, but with a succubus (Italian actress Erika Blanc). No reason succubi can't take inspiration from the Seven Deadly Sins while committing slaughter.

In the film (The Devil's Nightmare is its most common US title, The Devil Walks at Midnight its most recent), a family of German aristocrats endures a centuries-old curse. Seems the first-born daughter in every generation becomes a succubus for Satan. She seems not to particularly target family members, so there's no reason this should be a big problem, but the family has long done the right thing by killing first-born daughters at birth. But it's 1945, and the Allies are bombing Germany, and confusion reigns. The Baron (Jean Servais), an officer in Hitler's army, kills the wrong daughter.

Flash-forward to 1971, and the prodigal first-born daughter returns to the family castle.

As luck would have it, that very night a busload of tourists is stranded at the castle. And coincidentally, each tourist is guilty of one of the Seven Deadly Sins. After slinking about in revealing dresses, the succubus begins killing the tourists, one by one. The women too. That's rare for succubi, as most only target men. And she's got help. When she is stymied by Father Sorel (guilty of pride, and played by Luciene Raimberg), Satan (Daniel Emilfork) steps in to help her out.

Succubus films are largely and properly judged by the quality of their succubi. Even more so than vampires, succubi are erotic monsters. Female demons who sexually tempt men to death and/or damnation. Why do they do so? Usually, the only explanation is that they're demons, and that's what demons do.

Being sexual monsters, succubi should be alluring. Erika Blanc is that and more. She is a mesmerizing demoness, with extreme angular features, a fleshy but curvaceous body, and clear bright eyes framed by a flaming red mane. Few modern succubi can compare. Today's direct-to-video succubi (and "femme fatales") tend to be short, scrawny, and disproportionately top-heavy with chicken legs. Perhaps most of today's low-budget producers are "breast men" attracted to anorexic starlets. Blanc is a classy succubus, well-proportioned, the kind that best tempts European (and, I think, most) men.

Personality-wise, her succubus is more pedestrian. Most succubi are heartless monsters, without feeling for their victims. Vampires often have more compassion, or at least passion. Ironically, succubi are often indifferent to sex, merely using it mechanically as a bait and/or method of execution, killing during copulation. But Blanc doesn't even touch her victims, gleefully watching them die from afar. She is an especially cold-blooded succubus, her sole loyalty to Satan.

Some succubi kill to survive, but Blanc kills to win souls for Satan. She kills sinners during their transgressions, ensuring that they'll be damned for eternity. This yields some curious theological results. One young lady is killed asleep in bed, presumably guilty of sloth.

Sleeping in the middle of the night -- Oh wicked woman!

Well, sloth is one of the Seven Deadly Sins. I dunno, maybe it was early evening. Just make sure there are no succubi around if you go to bed early.

Most succubi merely reflect a surface beauty, skin deep. At some point, their natural ugliness is revealed. In the "Demon In Lace" episode of Kolchak: The Night Stalker, the succubus's true appearance was that of a crone. Whenever Blanc kills, her true form manifests: her eyebrows shaved, her face shiny and bluish, her thin red lips in a tight sadistic smile.

My favorite succubus is Karen Morgan (played by Diane DiLascio in the "Black Widow" episode of Poltergeist: The Legacy). DiLascio portrayed a rarity: a succubus-with-a-heart-of-gold. Her succubus had feelings. Feelings that could be hurt by a harsh word. I'd never before seen a succubus played that way. Other viewers must have agreed, because DiLascio's succubus returned for a rare encore episode: "She Has the Devil in Her."

Erika Blanc would be enough to recommend The Devil's Nightmare, but the film is enjoyable all-around. The other actors do a fine job, and the cinematography is lush and colorful.

Welch Everman, in his Cult Horror Films, says: "This Belgian/Italian spooky- castle film is really pretty good, not because the plot is particularly original but because the pacing and atmosphere make it work in spite of its shortcomings." I guess he means the film waits 50 minutes to begin the killings, but he's right, the pacing works. It allows the atmosphere to build, the succubus to toy with her victims, and the characters to become established, if only a bit. (Why do all European actors, when dubbed, sound alike?)

Less kind is John Stanley in his Creature Features Movie Guide: "Campy dialogue and silly premise provide laughs in this Italian-Belgian flop ... Each generation's eldest daughter is born an evil witch lusting to kill." I wasn't laughing, and the story is plainly about a succubus, not a witch.

Foreign film spellings appear to confuse everyone. Welch Everman spells the name of the actor playing Father Sorel as both Luciene Raimberg and Lucien Raimbourg. He spells the aristocrat family's name as both von Rumberg and von Runberg, whereas John Stanley spells it von Rhoneberg.

Mildly annoying to me: In the dubbed version, the characters keep referring to "succubuses." The American Heritage Dictionary (1971) finds this acceptable, but I think "succubi" is preferable. ("Succubae" is also acceptable to American Heritage.)

If you like succubi -- and who doesn't? -- you'll like The Devil's Nightmare.

I bought this dvd last week. I had heard lots of good things about it, and I had to see for myself. Well, I was blown away. The print transfer is excellent, the audio superb, and the story has a lot of twists and turns with very little gore. The only bad thing I have to say about the dvd, was the stupid beginning with Eileen Daly, in which she refers to a totally different Redmption film. Why does Redemption need to subject us to this with every film? Now this is unneccesarily gory and very homo-annoying.
Anyway, getting back to the movie. This tells the story of 6 tourists and a bus driver, finding shelter in an old castle owned by a Baron whose family has been cursed for centuries. During dinner the guests are joined by a beautiful woman (Erika Blanc) who may or may not be a succubus (a devil's handmaiden). Each of the tourists, including the bus driver represents the seven deadly sins, and each falling victim to that sin with the help of Blanc. I love the premise of good vs. evil. The director leads you into believing that you're in store for a usual stupid horror film, but, in essence, he's led us into a thinking man's film, full of contradictions, in which we're totally stunned at the end.
I had to watch this movie more than once. Each time, I got a different clue. I love films like this. It looks like a cheap piece of Euro-sleaze, but it's not. The print transfer is great, the dubbing is very good, and the characters have a kind of humor, that makes you like them, even though they are greedy, gluttonous, angry, lustful....etc.
Do yourself a favor, buy this dvd, skip the stupid introduction, and watch a great film!

I actually did take quite a fancy to this film about a busload of tourists stranded by a storm, each with their own particular foibles coalescent with the "Seven Deadly Sins". They are accompanied by a priest to a beautiful, though cursed castle, wherein an erubescent Succubus {the "curse"} spontaneously appears and immediately goes about exploiting each of their prominent desires, dispatching them, thereby damning their souls. All succumb except for the priest who himself eventually ends up signing a pact with The Devil {here portrayed by a robed bald man with a skeletal smile} for the seemingly altruistic purpose of condemning his own soul unto Satan in place of the tourists' - however, there certainly is a lethal catch.

The strange occurrences begin with a bleeding dead cat whose orange? blood seeps through the floorboards, through the ceiling of the bottom level, and onto the arm of one of the girls - thus, first blood is shed, as is first scream {one would think there was a devil-worshipper lurking about!}. Such is the case with the tint of the blood in the movie.

The Succubus goes from 0 - 666 in 9 seconds shedding her eyebrows and rosy complexion upon the demise of her victims during the commission of their erstwhile "sins" - methods range from impalements to beheadings to poisonings, as well as the deadly embrace of the iron maiden.

In attempting to form the origin of the villainous character, one is subjected to at least between 5 - 10 minutes of Nazi derivation, the nativity of the baby girl who would become Succubus. A daughter of Nazis. I wonder what contemporary law-abiding German citizens think about that portrayal, in a country where signaling the "Sig Heil" salute is a crime and carries a penalty of incarceration.

Of note, a sizzling lesbian scene between a gorgeous brunette and modelesque blonde accompanied by some awful "music" {which is more like irritating sound effects, which may have been intentional} can be quite distracting.

Interestingly enough, there is no dramatic "good vs. evil" epic battle, just a subtle agreement between The Devil and the priest, wherein The Prince of Darkness derives what he desires, and apparently, so does the priest, as the redhead is no longer possessed, and joins him by his side, granting a gaze of acknowledgement unto Lucifer. So ultimately, the ill-fated tourists were mere puppets in the midst of the interaction between Scratch and priest.

The Devil's Nightmare is a French film with English dubbing, and was originally called "The Terrible Night of The Demon", containing a decidedly Hammer films flavor to it.

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Note 1: Needless to say, yet perhaps bearing a small though obvious commentary, Satanism does not recognize these catholic "sins", but instead realizes these traits as normal and natural in the humanimal, which motivates evolution in the awareness of the flesh. Ergo, "Flesh without sin, world without end!" ASLV.

Note 2: Christian Church founders declared these inevitabilities "evil", thereby assuring Christians to a life of guilt where they would have to pay for penance; thus keeping the church wealthy through the misery of others.