Gruesome Galleries: 1974’s The Antichrist

Gruesome galleries collects a stack of sick photos from the notorious The Exorcist rip-off, The Antichrist

God bless the Italians. In the golden age of Italian terror throughout the 1970s, savvy producers constantly eyeballed American horror hits and wisely – and crassly – opted to honor those films by imitating them. And while often the Italian exploitation rip-offs of their commercially viable U.S. counterparts were not as “good,” they were almost always more eccentric and often much more dangerous, more offensive and upsetting.

Take director Alberto De Martino’s sleazy and lush 1974 film The Antichrist (released in the U.S. later as the less-offensively titled The Tempter), a quickie attempt by producer Edmondo Amati to re-direct some of the buzz and notoriety surrounding the international success of William Friedkin’s 1973 hit The Exorcist his way. The movie stars Carla Gravina as Ippolita, a mentally-disturbed woman who is a paralyzed from the waist down and wheelchair bound and who is still mourning the death of her mother. When Ippolita suddenly starts having graphic, bizarre and sexual dreams of what she believes might be a past life, she becomes possessed, becoming sexually voracious and then dangerous.

The usual post-The Exorcist shenanigans ensue, including levitating, gutterspeak and vomit. Though here, Ippolita forces the exorcising priest (George Coulouris) to eat her puke. The Antichrist for the win!

Notable actors Mel Ferrer and Arthur Kennedy show up for their Roman holiday and pretty paycheck and the film looks amazing, shot splendidly by Italo-sleaze legend Joe D’Amato (Anthropophagus, Buio Omega). And the score just might be one of Ennio Morricone’s best…

Feast your eyes on our gruesome gallery below and find some way to see this charmingly offensive slab of Euroshock immediately.