Perhaps the strangest entry in Severin's THE EUROCRYPT OF CHRISTOPHER LEE Blu-ray box set is CHALLENGE THE DEVIL, a 1963 Italian film so obscure that most Lee fans have never heard of it, let alone seen it.
The movie is a bizarre concoction, with a first act that has something to do with a man getting shot, and stumbling into a church. The man tells his story to a monk who happens to be an old friend. The monk then goes off to a nightclub and tells another story--this time to a rather full-figured dancer in her dressing room. This tale (shown in flashback) takes up most of the running time. Six irresponsible people--three men (including the monk in his younger days) and three women--find themselves at an old castle after a day of joyriding. The group gets drunk and wanders about the place, where they encounter a mysterious old man (Christopher Lee). The man offers them the treasure of the castle if they can find the body of his lost love. The motley assemblage finds no treasure, only trouble.
CHALLENGE THE DEVIL was written and directed by a man named Guiseppe Vegezzi, but the film was changed significantly by producer Ulderico Sciaretta. It was the producer who added the framing story with the monk and the nightclub, and he also cut out some of the footage involving the drunken group at the castle. One can blame Sciaretta for making a mess of the story--but Vegezzi's original tale (known as KATARSIS) was a mess already.
The castle sequence does feature Christopher Lee in short bits throughout, but when he's not on the screen, the story drags and drags. The members of the group are not particularly memorable, or interesting; they spend most of the time gyrating about like drunken office workers at a karaoke bar. The castle interiors are photographed very well in black and white--but nothing much happens.
For most of the very short time he is in this film, Lee is dressed like a Middle Ages aristocrat, with thick white hair and eyebrows. He effortlessly dominates, despite the fact that he's dubbed in Italian. One really wishes that Lee could be heard in English reciting his character's soliloquy about his lost love. Lee does get to show off his impressive body language, especially his hands, which are far more expressive here than any of the movie's dialogue. It would have been much better if Lee's footage had been inserted into another film altogether.
Writer/director Vegezzi apparently wanted this film to "mean something" about life, death, and fate....but the only existential question one asks while watching it is "How long does this movie go on?"
At least CHALLENGE THE DEVIL looks great on this Blu-ray--Severin says that the transfer was remastered from the original negative. The sound is fine as well, but the only voice track is in Italian, with English subtitles. An original trailer is included, which contains almost all of Christopher Lee's footage!
The main extra is a featurette with Italian film historian Roberto Curti, who gives massive background detail on the film and Guiseppe Vegezzi. (Most of the info in this blog post comes from Curti's talk.) Curti appears to be fond of the film, and he also delves into Vegezzi's personal problems and far-left politics. There's even some footage of an interview with Vegezzi, and after listening to the guy pontificate you can understand why he never made another film.
The other extra is some outtakes of two different interviews with actor Giorgio Ardisson from 2009 and 2014. Ardisson, who appeared in much better Euro cult fare, has a role as one of the drunken group in CHALLENGE THE DEVIL. Ardisson doesn't talk about his movie career here, he basically ruminates about life.
CHALLENGE THE DEVIL may not be one of the worst films of Christopher Lee's career, but it certainly is one of the weirdest. I do have to give credit to Severin for giving it a first-class home video release--who else would have?? If you are the type of person who thinks that Lee didn't have enough screen time in his Dracula films, you won't like this one, unless you get a perverse pleasure out of seeing Ed Wood-style shenanigans.
Well, you took the words right out of my mouth on this one! I couldn't come up with a more appropriate set of comments about this very odd movie. I need to watch it a second time, not that I imagine it's going to improve. But it did have a few good moments. The orgiastic dance scenes were not among them. Giorgio Ardisson did little more than laugh maniacally for most of the movie. I need to watch the Roberto Curti interview. I watched Giorgio's interview, and enjoyed hearing him speak. He's been a favorite of mine ever since I watched him being utterly destroyed by Barbara Steele in The Long Hair of Death. He suffered beautifully. I just found out that Sinister Cinema also sells this film, but I doubt if their version looks as good as Severin's.
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