Lisa and the Devil
Lisa e il diavolo
Lisa is a tourist in an ancient city. When she gets lost, she finds an old mansion in which to shelter. Soon she is sucked into a vortex of deception, debauchery and evil presided over by housekeeper Leandre.
Why it matters
A hallucinatory descent into gothic nightmare territory, Lisa and the Devil twists reality with surreal visuals and a brooding atmosphere that only Mario Bava could conjure.
- One of Bava’s final works, it blends baroque European gothic with supernatural dread, a precursor to later metaphysical horrors.
- Telly Savalas’s sinister butler and Elke Sommer’s lost tourist anchor a dreamlike tale of possession and eternal damnation.
- Practical effects and eerie set design create a suffocating sense of timeless decay and creeping madness.
- Fans of Euro-horror’s atmospheric slow-burns and symbolic storytelling will find a richly unsettling, if occasionally opaque, cult gem.
Director
15 horror films in catalog
Black Sunday 1960
Hercules in the Haunted World 1961
Black Sabbath 1963
The Girl Who Knew Too Much 1963
The Whip and the Body 1963
Blood and Black Lace 1964
Planet of the Vampires 1965
Kill, Baby... Kill! 1966
Hatchet for the Honeymoon 1970
Five Dolls for an August Moon 1970
A Bay of Blood 1971
Baron Blood 1972
Lisa and the Devil 1973
The House of Exorcism 1975
Shock 1977
Cast
Horror DNA
Gore
28
Slow Burn
66
Psychological
100
Supernatural
100
Creature
0
Disturbing
100
Fun Factor
17
Cerebral
71
Survival
50
