A Girl for Satan

Review by Mark Engle

It is always wonderful to run across a nice piece of Eurosleaze from the past. And La Bimba Di Satana was, in its day, truly one of those films. It is a rare find with that perfect dark atmosphere, creepy dungeons, despicable characters, beautiful women, the walking dead and possession.

Most video dealers will tell you that their version is uncut and this is only true to an extent. Running at little over an hour, this is all that exists of this film. For one reason or another, a lot of the juicy bits were excised from the print. The more pornographic shots, most likely, removed for easier distribution and the violence excised to deal with censorship laws abroad. What happened to those great scenes? As far as we were able to dig up, they no longer exist. It is a shame really! But hold on, what's left is still worth watching!

Plot
Antonio, a descendant of relatives whose lives have been spent in an old castle, considers himself more of a lord or dictator rather than a landowner. A brutish pig that shoots up his brother's pain medicine, beats women, wants sexual favors from a nun and hides the truth from authorities by burying dead bodies secretly in the cellar! His wife, Maria, who happened to have sex with just about everybody but him and I mean everybody, is dead at the opening of the film. During the funeral, their daughter, Miria comes in and faints of shock at the site of her mother's body. Round out the cast with a superstitious servant, a nun hired to take care of the household, the family doctor and Antonio's brother who is paralyzed from the neck down and is mute. Either the daughter becomes possessed by her dead mother, or her ghost, using the image of her daughter, is soon erotically enticing everyone in site and killing them off one by one. Sorry, it never really explains which way this is done, but it doesn't really matter. It just adds to the weird goings-on. Why is she doing this? Revenge, maybe? Or just a way to get people out of her house so she can be left alone with the one she truly loves. Sorry, we won't tell.

The movie as a whole is very dark and brooding. This isn't surprising considering it was produced and co-written by Gabriele Crisanti who also brought us, as producer, the great Patrick Still Lives (1980) and Gore In Venice (1979) which is probably known as one of the most bleak and gruesome giallos ever made. Our other writer is the very adventurous and talented Piero Regnoli who was responsible for penning Fulci's Demonia (1988), Lenzi's Nightmare City (1980) and Andrea Bianchi's Burial Ground (1980). The other main treat of the film is of course the actress who manages to steal most of the best death scenes in any Italian film she plays in, Mariangela Giordano! From getting her breasts eaten alive by her zombified son in Burial Ground to the infamous fireplace poker scene in Patrick Still Lives, she has a driven presence in just about any film she plays in (she also appeared in Gore in Venice, La Setta; 1990 and Franco's Killer Barbys in 1996). She succeeds here as well.

Conclusion
The film may have many of its more exciting components missing, but there is still enough here to enjoy. The print has also seen better days, which is evident with the picture captions below. For fans of Eurosleaze, it still is a wonderful entry for anyone's collection and we only hope that a better and more complete print may surface one day. Until then, this is worth repeated viewings.

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This movie is available at HK Flix!