Rating: NR
Genre:
Horror
Release Date: 09/30/2008
SubTitles: English
Dubbed: Italian
Sound: DD2
Run Time: 90 min
Flags: Graphic Violence, Strong Sexual Content, Gore
Distributor/Studio: Ryko Distribution/Salvation Group/Redemption
Delirium director
Renato Polselli delivers yet another delectable slice of cinematic sleaze with this sadomasochistic shocker set in a gothic castle, and culminating with the sacrifice of seven naked virgins during a bloody satanic orgy. Lurid depictions of whippings, torture, and beatings abound in a truly diabolical tale of inhuman cruelty starring Euro sleaze-queen
Rita Calderoni and prolific actor/bodybuilder
Mickey Hargitay.
~ Jason Buchanan, All Movie Guide
The kinks come fast and furious in this hallucinatory and sexually overheated supernatural
horror film. The voluptuous
Rita Calderoni stars as a young woman who inherits an ancient Italian castle, unaware that in its lower depths a vampire cult is attempting to raise their witch priestess (also
Calderoni) from the dead.
Mickey Hargitay co-stars as her protective uncle who has a sinister connection to the dead witch. Having established this thumbnail story line, director
Renato Polselli (
The Vampire and the Ballerina, 1960) quickly abandons it in favor of a bewildering fever-dream procession of
Sadean images drenched in psychedelic candy colors by cinematographer
Ugo Brunelli. While conventional genre film admirers may find the proceedings baffling and a mite pretentious, one cannot argue that
Polselli has a particular talent for combining Gothic
horror with disturbing and often indelible erotic imagery. Made simultaneously with
Polselli's equally shocking
psycho-thriller Delirium, and featuring much of the same cast (with the addition of
pop singer
Raoul Rossi),
The Reincarnation of Isabel was long considered lost in its original form. A one-hour version entitled
The Ghastly Orgies of Count Dracula was the only proof of its existence until the U.K.'s
Salvation Films located a complete print and released it upon an unsuspecting DVD audience. Eagle-eyed
Euro-horror fans will note that the castle setting (Castle Balsorano, in the L'Aquila region of Italy) is the same location where
Hargitay wreaked havoc in 1965 as the
Crimson Executioner in
Bloody Pit of Horror.
Salvation's letterboxed DVD presentation includes the original trailer, which highlights many of the film's most eye-popping scenes.
~ Paul Gaita, All Movie Guide
;)
