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Most recent version discovered is located on X Hamster website (type in
title) as SEXORCISM, 82m. Presumably, this is the hardcore French
language version. The 2012 Redemption Blu-ray is problematic both in
terms of a sometimes heavily damaged source print and the poorly dubbed
English language main feature.
The standard horror version, a 69 minute censored cut, DEMONIAC, was
also included on the Redemption Blu-ray. It does feature the French
track, you can hear it under the opening credits. But the remainder
defaults to the English dub. What is most needed is a release with the
complete French track, which features the voice of Jess Franco as the
killer, with new English subtitles.
The X rated 4 Disc release has 3 versions listed, one "Director's Cut"
and two theatrical cuts in French. None appear to have English subs for
the French tracks. I have not had the change to review this boxset yet.
Redemption was supposed to release the French language hard-core
version, SEXORCISM, but that release never happened. A multi-language
version of the 1980 alternate cut, THE SADIST OF NOTRE DAME, was
released in 2018, from Severin Films, it included the Spanish track, on
which Franco voiced his character. English language subtitles were provided.
"...artistic curiosity begins at the very point where the senses leave off." J.K. Huysmans
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EXORCISM 1974 Gray Market versions: Video Search of Miami, European Trash
Cinema, and others (U.S. imports) DIRECTED BY J.P. JOHNSON ("JESS FRANCO ") WITH: LINA ROMAY, "JESS
FRANK" (JESS FRANCO), PIERRE TAYLOU, "LYNN MONTEIL" (NADINE PASCAL), MONICA SWINN, OLIVIER MATHOT,
ROGER GERMANES, CLAUDE SENDRON, RICHARD DeCONNICK, CLAUDE BOISSON, DANIEL J. WHITE, CHRISTINE CHIREIX, DAVID ATTA,
FRANCE NICOLAS, SAM MAREE, CAROLE RIVERE, PHILLIPPE LEBRUN, RAMON ARDID, ALBERT LERNER, CATHERINE LAFERRIERE, FRANCOISE
GOUSSARD.
This outrageous project exists in so many variants, at so many different running times it would be impossible to
view them all (since some are not even available on home video) much less detail the differences. Of the versions
now available on tape, the softest is undoubtedly the cut Wizard Video version, DEMONIAC, released in the late
1980s. A running time of 87 minutes is listed on the Wizard video box, which also sports stills of scenes not included
in this particular cut. They released a recut version of LA SADIQUE DE NOTRE-DAME a 1979 Spanish-French co-production
that mixes footage from Franco's 1974 EXORCIME ET MESSES NOIRES and scenes shot five years later on Parisian locations.
This film has a softcore sex and violence, English-language variant, titled EXORCISM, which was the film which
started it all.
The 1975 hardcore version of this film, retitled SEXORCISME, can be had in two slightly different cuts available
from U.S. mail order companies. These include an 71-minute English-subtitled version, taken from a French-language
video; and a longer 82-minute variation which also has a slightly different scene arrangement. The latter is available
in French language only. Both of these version drop much narrative material and several major characters to include
several lengthy and over-the-top XXX sequences, some of which show Franco himself participating in hardcore action!
The gory, English-language EXORCISM was unavailable for many years and in some ways it is the most disturbing of
all the versions. The protagonist, Mathis Vogel/Laforgue (Franco), is a sexually twisted, religion-obsessed psychopath
who murders Paris women. The film represents Franco's most severe vision of madness and evil. The thematic questions
are, what constitutes madness and evil? Though these are familiar themes in Franco's works, the director never
posed them so powerfully as here. The XXX versions were desperate attempts to make an unpleasant film more commercial,
at least on the adult movie market, and the hardcore situations only enhance the film's sense of sexual delirium
and blasphemy.
The fact that all these version have scenes which later found their way into the 1979 remake SADIST OF NOTRE DAME
indicates that Franco was attempting to more bucks out of burnt-out material. The hardcore versions look so cheap
and shoddy, though, that one guesses they had difficulty even on the "money-back guaranteed" sex circuit
of the mid 70s, which probably explains why he recycled the scenes. The English language EXORCISM anticipates in
tone and style such slasher fare as HENRY PORTRAIT OF A SERIAL KILLER and SILENCE OF THE LAMBS, and Franco's character
is in some ways even more sinister than Hannibal Lector. However, EXORCISM and the later SADIST OF NOTRE DAME are
very somber.
The gore scenes are repugnant, and include the torturing of both Carole Riviere and Lina Romay with a knife. As
they are being cut up, the killer chants sections of the Roman Catholic mass in Latin. The most grotesque addition
is a scene which shows him murdering The Countess (France Nicholas) on a hotel bed. This is accomplished by shots
of him slashing her open and ripping out some of her internal organs.
Also, this version also makes clear the Black Masses Vogel witnesses are staged events, the human "sacrifices"
are not harmed but are willing participants, the knives they are "stabbed" with have retractable blades,
and the blood is fake. As these explanatory scenes are missing from all other versions, Vogel's mania and the Satanist's
agenda are a lot clearer -- Vogel is a deluded fanatic and the Satanists are just harmless hedonists, even though
their dedication to evil is total. Another aspect this version restores is a conversation between the various police
inspectors and an Interpol investigator, in which Vogel's murders are linked to rituals from the Inquisition. Connect
this with Vogel's description of himself in SADIST OF NOTRE DAME as an agent of the Inquisition.
EXORCISM has the same storyline as all the other versions, minus the 1979 footage of Vogel repeated visiting the
Notre-Dame cathedral, and confessing his murders to a priest who was a friend in the seminary that Vogel left.
Without these scenes, EXORCISM and the hardcore SEXORCIMES are much more nihilistic. Vogel seems much more monstrous
and, ironically, slightly more sympathetic. Some of Vogel's background and motives are not explained, which colors
him as a mysterious, almost abstract, icon of insanity. He is insane, but perhaps not evil in the same sense as
the Satanists, who are upper-middle class dilettantes and choose evil as a way of life. Vogel's self-proclaimed
holy war upon them and the loose women of Paris is his philosophical statement on the amorality of the modern world,
but he sees his sick actions as totally moral.
EXORCISM and its many variants are not conventionally well-made films. The minimalist visual style, under-lit cinematography,
ragged editing (exacerbated by the XXX inserts of some versions), and painfully slow pacing contribute to a viewing
experience which is hard on the viewer's eyes and patience. Perhaps this reaction is precisely what Franco was
looking for, as the theme of the film is the nature of "viewing." Vogel sees the sadomasochistic rituals,
which he misinterprets, and we are the viewers of Franco's Sadean thriller. Vogel also writes narratives about his "viewings" just as Jess Franco makes films about the relationships and distance between viewers and writers,performers,and directors.
(C)Robert Monell,2019 (New Version)
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