Katarsis (1963)

Director:

Giuseppe Veggezzi

Release Date:

9 June 1963 (Italy)

Genre:

Fantasy | Horror

Plot:

Filmed in Odescalchi Castle and Lake Bracciano near Rome. A group of dropouts find an old man (Lee) in a castle...

Plot Keywords:

Castle | Devil | Beautiful Woman | Ghost | Supernatural

Cast

Christopher Lee	...	Mephistoles
Bella Cortez
Lilli Parker
Piero Vida
George Ardisson
Ulderico Sciaretta		(as Ulderico Sciarretta)
Anita Dreyer		(as Anita Dreyver)
Mario Zakarti		(as Mario Zacarti)
Adriana Ambesi
Eva Gioia
Ettore Ribotta		(as Ettore Ribotti)
Sergio Gibello		(as Sergio Gebello)
Pasquale Basile
Sonia Scotti		(as Sonia)
rest of cast listed alphabetically:
Alma De Río

Directed by
Giuseppe Veggezzi		(as Joseph Vegh)

Original Music by
Berto Pisano

Production Companies

• Belotti Produzione
• Films Della Mangusta

Also Known As:

Country:

Italy

Language:

Italian

Color:

Black and White

Sound Mix:

Mono

Filming Locations:

Odescalchi Castle, Bracciano, Rome, Lazio, Italy

Company:

Belotti Produzione

Trivia:

'Christopher Lee''s voice was dubbed into Italian by another actor for this film.

KATARSIS (Giuseppe Veggezzi, 1963) *1/2

This is definitely Christopher Lee's most obscure European genre effort and, in retrospect, one of the weakest from any phase in his prolific career – in fact, I would even venture to name it the worst entry in the Gothic Horror cycle emanating from Italy! Incidentally, the copy I watched was culled from a recent late-night screening on Italian TV – its first ever broadcast (where the on-screen title was the alternate one SFIDA AL DIAVOLO) which, given the dire results, is not surprising! Truth be told, the genre icon's presence (or its three stages, since he goes from the reclusive pathetic owner of a decaying mansion – his fair hair unintentionally evoking Shakespeare's Hamlet, in whose celebrated 1948 film version Lee had actually appeared in a bit-part! – to a dark Mephistophelean figure and, finally, revealed to be the previously imperceptible victim of a mugging) within the film hardly amounts to 10 minutes of its 76-minute running-time!

The film starts off as a lame chase thriller with pious undertones, is stopped dead in its tracks by a slew of pointless musical numbers, then turns into a hedonistic drama on the lines of (but a long way after) THESE ARE THE DAMNED (1963) – with the best-known member of the younger cast, Giorgio Ardisson, actually the one to ham it up most relentlessly! – before settling into some typical haunted-house antics (with some cob-webbed interiors and scuttling creatures notching up a few points for Cocteau-like atmosphere). The mix could have actually proved quite interesting but, since director Veggezzi (whose name was unfamiliar to me – and it did not take long to discover why) displayed remarkable incompetence throughout, the end result is almost on a par with the notorious work of Ed Wood!