Retail Price: $29.95

Reviewed by:
Ian Miller on October 29, 2007.

A séance is underway in the Castle Karoli, with widower Andrea wishing to reach his dearly departed Daniela. Unexpectedly, this plan is interrupted when the spirit of an ancestor by the name of Lucrezia busts in on the medium’s radar and proceeds to lambaste the entire clan, calling them hypocrites and sluts. If this weren’t quite enough, this apparition then starts unzipping flies, pulling down dresses and zooming about the house, stopping only to have some fun with faithful Sister Sofia (BURIAL GROUND’s Mariangela Giordano), governess to Andrea’s 16 year-old daughter Bimba (one-timer Katell Laennec). After coaxing the nun into a state of ecstatic abandon, Lucrezia settles in Bimba’s room, and it becomes obvious to the viewer that the precocious teen will be the vessel for her carnal mischief. 

Meanwhile, life is not so rosy in the Karoli family, with Andrea looking to sell off the property in order to avert foreclosure. His mother will have nothing of this, reminding him that if he marries the easy wife Nais (busty Patrizia Webley of SALON KITTY) of his paralyzed (and surely soon-to-be deceased) brother Adolfo, his fortune will remain in the family and will be saved. Well, now it’s Andrea’s turn to get indignant at the very mention of this, for not only is his brother still alive (though not lively enough to satisfy the ravenous Nais, who must settle for the advances of her sleazeball lawyer), but he’s sworn to a life of celibacy, as he can never replace the love of his Daniela (not that he hasn’t though about it). Unsurprisingly, the time is ripe for a possessed Bimba to shake things up, and she does, hurling sexually-charged invective at the family, having intimate relations with her teddy bear (as well as giving it an appendage, in the form of a candle), and attempting to seduce and corrupt all that come in her path, including Sofia, who takes it upon herself to guide the little sex beast through this trying time, knowing that a true act of sacrifice may be all that can save her.

Ah, Italy in the 1970’s. Only in the crazed popular cinema of that time and place would you find this unholy alliance of the EXORCIST-inspired possession film (a European horror genre in and of itself), the “naughty nun” archetype (we probably have Ken Russell to thank for that one, though directors like Jess Franco, Walerian Borowczyk and Joe D’Amato all took turns pushing the concept into new, increasingly sordid areas), and something that can only be described as a gothic sex drama, with enough moral bankruptcy and feverishly kinky behavior to fill at least three whole features! If one is familiar with other films in director Andrea Bianchi (BURIAL GROUND, STRIP NUDE FOR YOUR KILLER) or scriptwriter Piero Regnoli (NIGHTMARE CITY)’s collective resumes, none of this should be much of a surprise, with both individuals at the helm of any project it can be assured that sleazy behavior and outlandish dialogue/situations will be the order of the day, and MALABIMBA is no different. While all of the leads do a decent job with what they’re given, and some of the performances are a bit more wooden than the others (Laennec and Giordana come off the best), the situations and banter more than make up for any shortcomings in this department. 

All of this would be enough to make the viewer’s head spin right off, but the fact that it’s so beautifully photographed (by Franco Villa of SLAUGHTER HOTEL and MILANO CALIBRO 9 fame) just adds to the overall delirium. The locations, interiors and actors and actresses themselves are so lovingly rendered by Villa’s lens, that it’s a shame that it all has to be slightly marred by XXX inserts that do little to enhance but a bit to disrupt the flow of erotic scenes that don’t require them (though it must be said that one such scene does work, it’s just not overly necessary). These inserts were never intended by Bianchi and crew to be part of the film, but it’s a measure of how things were in the Italian film industry at the time, and as such it’s an important document. 

Those crazy folks over at Severin have done it again, this time bringing you Andrea Bianchi’s nutty 1979 possession epic MALABIMBA, in a beautiful anamorphically enhanced transfer. It may not be for all tastes (and it does include a few XXX inserts), but if you like your Euro-sleaze blasphemous, dirty and straight-up outlandish, this release is for YOU!

Patrizia Webley, Enzo Fisichella, Giuseppe Marrocli, Elisa Mainardi, Giancarlo Del Duca, Mariangela Giordano