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The Worst Film Ever

From my favorite movies..

It's funny, it's tense, it features two great performances from two actors and the director expertly creates a web of odd tension where you actually don't know what is happening for the majority of the run time.

There are moments in this movie where the great movie it could've been peek out... They're fleeting, here, but they're worth savoring, and they happen often enough to make it worth your while.

"The Antichrist" focuses on Ippolita, a woman in Rome who has been wheelchair-bound since childhood and has lost her faith. As she spirals into sexual frustration, she is plagued by visions of her ancestor who was executed for being a slave to Satan, and not even her well-meaning hypnotist can save her from what comes next.As virtually every review of this film has stated, it is an absurdly obvious ripoff of "The Exorcist," lifting scenes right out of the film and recreating them rather unimpressively. Poor special effects, green vomit, and overwhelming growls abound, as well as a priest who makes a very Max von Sydow-esque entrance at the end of the film. Okay, so it's a ripoff—with that established, what else can be said of the film? Unfortunately, not a whole lot. What it does having working in its favor is a unique spin on the exorcism tale, with more adult themes (as well as more significantly "adult" images). There are some visually fantastic compositions that appear throughout the film, though a great deal of the cinematography is rather dull. The shock scenes in the film are remarkably repulsive at times, with the most infamous being the bestiality ritual about midway through, which is suggestively disgusting. Carla Gravina plays the lead woman possessed, and is appropriately hysterical when necessary, and calmly seductive as well. Mel Ferrer and Arthur Kennedy both turn in decent performances, while Alida Vali appears in a pre-"Suspiria" role that shows a softer side to the actress in opposition to the harsh Miss Tanner that would come to define her for horror audiences.Overall, "The Antichrist" was a bit of a letdown. I sincerely wanted to like it, but felt the film was quite average in just about every way. As an "Exorcist" retread, it's not great, and even on its own terms, it's a fairly drab film that brings little to the table aside from a few thematic ideas concerning sexuality and the supernatural. It's worth a watch for genre completists, or fans of B-horror films, but aside from a few neat visuals, there just isn't much intrigue here. 5/10.

William Friedkin's Cult-milestone THE EXORCIST (1973) spawned quite a number of European rip-offs, or at least of European films that treated the subject of daemonic possessions. As far as European Exorcist-rip-offs go, Alberto De Martino's L'ANTICRISTO aka. THE ANTICHRIST of 1974 is doubtlessly the creepiest and best I've seen. (There is one Italian movie with a similar possession topic, which, in my opinion, is better than this one, Massimo Dallamano's great IL MEDAGLIONE INSANGUINATO aka. THE NIGHT CHILD of 1975. That movie is far too different to label it an Exorcist-rip-off, however.)The possessed here is not a little girl but a young woman, Ippolita (Carla Gravina) who has been paralyzed since the car accident that killed her mother. Since her paralysis has no medical foundation, her father (Mel Ferrer) assigns a psychiatrist to help his daughter. The hypnosis therapy, however, has unwanted results...The storyline is not merely based on THE EXORCIST, but has similarities to a classic Italian Horror formula: An innocent young woman being possessed by an evil ancestor who is her spitting image (and, in this case, even has the same name). The innocent/evil female double role was started in Italian Horror film in Mario Bava's 1960 masterpiece LA MASCHERA DEL DEMONIO (BLACK Sunday/THE MASK OF Satan), which first brought Italian Horror film to international attention. Barbara Steele became famous for such a double role in that film, and continued to play comparable roles in several other Italian Gothic Horror movies. In L'ANTICRISTO, it is Satan who, centuries after possessing an ancestor who was subsequently burned at the stake, takes possession of a wheel-chair-bound young woman.The film is a good example for the stylistic and visual elegance of Italian Horror cinema. The settings are beautiful and eerie alike, the camera-work (done by the one and only sleaze-filmmaker Joe D'Amato) is great. The score is a collaboration of masters Ennio Morricone and Bruno Nicolai, needless to say that its brilliant and increases the thick atmosphere. The film has a good ensemble cast including Mel Ferrer, Arthur Kennedy, the great and beautiful Cult-regular Anita Strindberg, Alida Valli, who would appear in the probably most famous Italian Horror film, Dario Argento's masterpiece SUSPIRIA (1977) three years later. Carla Gravina is believable in the lead and the eerie-looking George Couloris fits well in the role of the Exorcist.Some people seem to dislike the somewhat bizarre first 5 minutes of the movie, but I actually found them to be highly atmospheric. In my opinion, the film got slightly less interesting in the second half, when some of the EXORCIST references became too obvious. The only real complaint one could have are the clumsy effects when objects and people are floating in the air; from today's point of view, they should probably just have left these sequences out, but then, any cult-cinema lover will be willing to look past that in the light of the great style, atmosphere and creepiness of the rest of the film. Overall, this is a very stylish slice of Satanic Horror and highly recommended by yours truly, especially to my fellow fans of Italian Horror.

I've only seen a handful of Italian Exorcist rip-offs; but I've seen enough to know that this type of film generally isn't very high quality. The same can't be said for Alberto De Martino's The Antichrist, however, which is so far in front of all the other Exorcist rip-offs that I've seen that you could just about throw all the rest of the Italian devil/demons films into the mix; and this one would still rise above the majority of them. Of course, the film has something of a bad reputation for a reason - and how much you enjoy this film may well hinge on just how important a coherent plot line is to you; but if you can ignore that, what we have here is a very good horror film. The plot is not far removed from William Friedkin's 1973 film and focuses on a wheelchair bound woman. Her psychiatrist believes that her problem may be mental rather than physical and sets out to cure her. However, in doing so he brings back memories of her past life; which involved her worshipping Satan, and the woman is soon possessed by the Devil...This film really is very similar to The Exorcist both in style and execution. The victim here spouts vomit and atrocities just as Regan did in the earlier film and of course we get an exorcism scene to go with it; but the film still rises head and shoulders above most films like it thanks to the visuals. Alberto de Martino really put care into how the film looks and many frames are extraordinarily beautiful. The house in which most of the action takes place is a lavish construction that is a pleasure on the eyes - while sequences such as a devil worship orgy as well as the numerous scenes that depict the result of the possession will stick in the memory long after the film has finished. It's clear that the scriptwriter wanted to shock his audience and some of the things that the leading lady spouts really are quite vulgar and blasphemous, which is a highlight. It all boils down to the big exorcism scenes; and De Martino certainly doesn't disappoint here either as its loud, brash and entertaining throughout. In fact, if it wasn't for the turgid opening scenes - this could easily be considered a masterpiece! Don't miss this one!

I've always liked this movie and i've been lucky enough to find a VHS copy of the french translation of it in a video rental store that was closing down ten years ago with the original plastic box they use to have in movie rental stores.This is the rarest of my collection since i haven't find any(at least in french like mine)over the internet and i cherish it.Sometimes, i think about selling it but, the one who would buy it would have to lay down the cash, believe me!The special effect are quite mediocre, the actors are bad or badly directed, but since i was only ten years old when i first saw it, the souvenirs makes it more valuable to my eyes.I hope you enjoyed it as much as i do every time i watch it and; who knows, you might owned it someday