The Eerie Midnight Horror Show (aka The Sexorcist)

I remember first seeing this on late-night cable TV way back in the early 1980's. It must have been on Cinemax, or maybe the USA Network. Anyway, it was heavily edited, but still pretty good. And so I decided to check it out again on Alpha Video.Well, here's the deal: The movie starts out fairly strong, but right about the half-way point it totally runs out of gas. At the beginning, there are effective visuals, some cool special effects, and a promising plot. In fact, the first half of the film is truly imaginative, colorful, atmospheric, and it even has some erotic moments. But then it appears that the film-makers either ran out of money, or abandoned the script, or (probably) both.Initially, we have a young, pretty, female art student. She encounters a wooden life-size statue of one of the thieves that was crucified with Christ. She brings the statue back to her art studio, and -- lo and behold -- it gradually comes to life. This scene of the statue becoming animated is one of the best in the entire film. Soon enough, the living statue seduces her; and not only that, it also transfers an evil spirit into her body. She is now possessed, and she swiftly proceeds to act out her sexual impulses. None of this is very graphic, and it is mostly suggested, rather than being explicit. Still, some viewers may be uncomfortable with these scenes.Soon after this, she visits an "Etruscan temple". There, she visualizes some striking images of a diabolical ritual, with some curvaceous witches whose bodies are painted blue. They are wearing robes, but there are brief flashes of full-frontal nudity. These scenes are some of the most sensual and exotic to be found in the movie. They are quite effective.But now, unfortunately, the movie begins to go seriously downhill. After leaving the temple, the art student becomes more and more possessed. And what I mean by this is that she starts screaming endlessly and shaking her head back and forth. In fact, the ENTIRE second half of the film consists of her screaming and shaking her head. Frankly, it's annoying as hell. This must be the point where the film-makers ran out of money -- they just told the actress to scream and shake her head for forty minutes of screen time. I actually began to fast-forward through some of this incessant screaming. Oh, and by the way, there is no more eroticism in the film once she starts screaming. You just get screaming, and plenty of it.Finally (!!), we are introduced to a priest who is also an "exorcist". This role is played quite effectively by Italian character actor Luigi Pistilli. You will likely recognize him right away from The Good, The Bad, And The Ugly (1966), as well as from For A Few Dollars More (1966). Interestingly, he also played a priest in that first film as well -- as Tuco's brother. This guy must really like to play priests.Anyway, after much struggle and torment, he finally succeeds with his exorcism of the young woman. But these scenes are very flat and uninspired, and then the movie just suddenly ends (!) -- with a freeze-frame of his big sweaty face. Did they just run out of money?? What the hell?To sum up, the first half of the film is worth about four stars for creativity, flair, and eroticism, and the second half deserves only about two stars for being dull, repetitive, and weak. That averages out to about three stars. And that's how this movie plays out. In other words, this film is undeniably flawed, and terribly uneven.

I didn't expect much from a movie called the Eerie Midnight Horror Show. I was a sucker and bought this blindly based on the cover alone. Strange enough the company putting so much effort in the packaging but couldn't have the discs actually pressed but burned on a DVD-R. Almost defeats the purpose of buying a physical copy.

This film has several elements that could make it interesting and effective, but its inept screenwriting and clueless direction manage to botch everything. Watching this is an frustrating exercise in failed expectations. The poor quality of the print just adds to the frustration.

Couple scenes of nudity. One full frontal and one nudity. If buying for nudity, pass.

A horror movie what else you want. Crackers in bed?

I remember when I was a kid I used to see this movie at the video store on the back of the movie it said this movie makes the exorcist look like a Sunday school picnic. No it does not this movie sucks

The item arrived on time and was just as expected. It played as expected and is a very good movie. I like this product and highly recommend the seller. I am very satisfied with this purchase.

This movie is literally the center of the Venn Diagram that would be made of the movies that I love the most.Italian ripoff of a successful film — This movie is obviously trying to be The Exorcist.Satanism — This film has some of the goofiest and most awesome devil tricks of any of I’ve seen.Exploitation — No one in this film acts like a normal human being and reality has been supplanted by insanity before the demons even get involved.Multiple titles — This film is also known as Sexorcist, The Tormented, Devil Obsession, L’Ossessa and was later re-released post-Rocky Horror midnight movie success in 1977 as The Eerie Midnight Horror Show.And the title card that comes up before the movie begins: THIS FILM IS BASED ON A TRUE STORY.Daniela is an art student in Italy who is so respected by her teachers that she gets to join them as they acquire religious sculptures from a church due to be torn down. That church was deconsecrated way back in the 1700’s because the priests and nuns decided that they would turn against God and start having orgies in the church. And one of the statues, an incredibly lifelike display of one of the thieves crucified next to Jesus, catches Daniela’s eye. She is told that it was pulled directly from a tree, that it was already inside the wood and all the sculptor had to do was bring out the details. However, many tourists have had mental breakdowns just looking at this sculpture.Daniela’s life is weird even before the crazy gets started. Her rich parents throw a party and we learn that her mother isn’t just cheating on her husband, she’s doing it pretty much in public. Yep — Daniela catches her mother getting whipped by the thorns of a rose — a scene that Becca just randomly walked into and asked, “What are you watching?!?”Our heroine leaves for her studio at the university. As she paints, the sculpture comes off the cross in a scene that can only come from the deranged mind of Italian exploitation filmmaking (director Mario Gariazzo wrote Sister Emanuelle and directed Very Close Encounters of the Fourth Kind). Of course, that revived religious icon then has sex with her, sex that appears to be a dream as she runs from the studio.Later that night, as Daniela climbs the stairs to her family’s apartment, she keeps thinking she is alone, but the sounds of her footsteps don’t match up. She hears a demon whisper her name and she runs in fear before the demon overcomes her, forcing her into a state of sexual mania and a dream where she is crucified. She spends the rest of the movie trying to get anyone to have sex with her while stigmata appears on her hands and she does all of the tropes of exorcism rip-offs.And then Ivan Rassimov (All the Colors of the Dark, Shock/Beyond the Door II, Your Vice Is a Locked Room and Only I Have the Key ) shows up as Satan, giving Daniela her beauty back so that she can work with him to tempt all of the priests, like Father Xeno (Luigi Pistilli, Oliviero from Your Vice Is a Locked Room and Only I Have the Key). She tries to seduce him, so to forget that she has tempted him he self-flagellates.The priest dies and the girl is saved, after she pukes out the demon. But you knew that, right? You’ve seen this film repeated before. But that doesn’t mean that this film isn’t great. And by great, I mean the scummiest version of everything you love about films like this. No matter title you refer to it by, it is everything you want to see.

Contrariamente a quanto riportato, non è presente nessuna lingua italiana, né nell'audio, né nei sottotitoli! Oddio... non che sia indispensabile... Però magari a qualcuno fa piacere comprare ciò che legge.