Other Mondo Macabro Blu-rays we've, also, reviewed:

Night Has a Thousand Desires	Private Vices, Public Virtues	Suddenly	Symptoms	A Woman in a Lizard's Skin

Review by Gary Tooze

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Description: In 16th century France, Inquisitor and magistrate Bernard de Fossey (Paul Naschy) travels to the plague-ridden region of Peyriac in search of witches and devil worshippers. Local beauty Catherine (Daniela Giordano) quickly catches his eye, tormenting him with impure thoughts, although her affections lie with her handsome fiancé Jean. Meanwhile, embittered one-eyed manservant Rénover (Antonio Iranzo) presents Bernard with his first group of torture victims when he accuses several sexy young things who spurned his advances of being witches responsible for the plague.
 

One by one beautiful women are tortured on the rack then burned at the stake. No-one seems able to halt the Inquisition's reign of terror or the baseless accusations that cause so many innocent deaths. When Jean dies in mysterious circumstances, Catherine allies herself with Satan to get revenge on her enemies - foremost among them, De Fossey himself.

This was horror star Paul Naschy's directorial debut and one of his very best films. He plays three roles - Inquisitor De Fossey, the Devil, and the Grim Reaper. The film is a brutal and unrelenting portrait of a past when superstition and terror ruled the minds of men.

 

 

Internationally famed horror star, Paul Naschy embarks on his first directorial effort and proves he was a much better director than those that were directing him. He shows an amazing amount of assurance in the director's chair with a great attention to detail and continuity. It makes one wonder just how his past forays as an actor would have turned out had he been directing those as well. Following in the tradition of past Witch/Devil movies such as the classic WITCHFINDER GENERAL (1968), the gruesome MARK OF THE DEVIL (1970) and Ken Russell's THE DEVILS (1971), Naschy's movie follows the template set down by those and other similar movies.

Witch-hunting lends itself easily to the strongest of cinematic exploitation, being used, for the most part, as a pretext for showing very attractive females in naked bondage undergoing horrors from monsters who, not surprisingly, happen to be men. Yet even the most notorious films of this ilk cannot but help manage to make some statement on the inhumanity of the time. There are, after all, those torture sequences that must be explained, the villainy that must be exposed and defeated. Infamous pictures, like THE MARK OF THE DEVIL, present the traditional--and easiest--view: the evil, inflexible Church abusing innocents. Witches, in such films, tend to be figments of the fanatical imagination of religious zealots who pursue and torture their female victims with unwholesome relish and eyes glittering with barely repressed lust. Even worse, some of these zealots know that their female victims are innocent, but, impelled by sexual sadism, they inflict their tortures nonetheless.

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Mondo Macabro add a new audio commentary with Rod Barnett and Troy Guinn and it was a good one with plenty of discussion on Naschy, details of the production, shooting in Spain etc. It gives the Blu-ray significant value. There was an 8-minute introduction by Paul Naschy plus a 1/4 hour interview with star Daniela Giordano. Some may appreciate the 2-part 25-minute, 1999 documentary on Spanish horror films entitled Blood and Sand, directed by Andrew Starke and Pete Tombs. It has snippets of interviews with Amando de Ossorio, Orchidea de Santis, Daniela Giordano, Penelope McGhie, Paul Naschy and others. It has English subtitles for the Spanish-language sequences. There is also an 11-minute long trailer of 'More from Macabro.

BOTTOM LINE:
Inquisition has some pretty harsh scenes of torture and its share of nudity. It supports a strong period atmosphere. If you are familiar with Paul Naschy's films (I have seen many and reviewed Night of the Werewolf / Vengeance of the Zombies on Blu-ray) and I found this a notch above some of his other horror efforts, with more professional production details. I also enjoyed the commentary and links to other films like Witchfinder General, Mark of the Devil, Ken Russell's The Devils and even Bergman's The Seventh Seal. Mondo Macabro's Blu-ray has a lot of value and to fans of the actor/director it is recommended! 

Gary Tooze

June 8th, 2017

 

On June 20th, 2017, Shout! Factory are releasing The Paul Naschy Collection (Night of the Werewolf, Vengeance of the Zombies, Horror Rises From the Tomb, Blue Eyes of he Broken Dolls, and Human Beasts) on Blu-ray

Other Mondo Macabro Blu-rays we've, also, reviewed:

Night Has a Thousand Desires	Private Vices, Public Virtues	Suddenly	Symptoms	A Woman in a Lizard's Skin