There are so many good spooky movies on Criterion, I’ve decided I’m going to make an effort to watch as many as I can! Tonight we watched an Italian film called “Il Demonio” (1963) about a young woman who dabbles in magic to make a man love her… and things go VERY BADLY for her!

The film, by Brunello Rondi, is filmed in a contemporary cinema verite style. It’s pretty brutal and dead serious. Purif (our hero) gets blamed for everything because she did a little love spell, yet ironically everyone in town does their own magic tricks to keep the devil away! Hypocrisy.