Il sesso della strega (1973) is director Angelo Pannaccio’s best known effort. Pannaccio specialized in erotic films and made three that intersected with the horror genre. Of those three erotic horror films, Il sesso della strega is the first and it takes its cues from the Gothic horror pictures of the sixties. Pannaccio takes the simple premise of a family turned against itself over an inheritance and inserts as much sexual intrigue, incest, and red herrings as he can possibly imagine.
By adding intrigue upon intrigue in this way Pannaccio turns a straight forward and familiar plot into a convoluted mess. Matters are not helped much by Pannaccio’s choice of images that leave the viewer disoriented spatially in relationship to the actors and their setting. A servant will peek through a door and then the next shot, presumably a POV, will be a close-up in profile of another character. These kinds of disorienting cuts populate Il sesso della strega in such great abundance that it begins to feel intentional but as a stylistic choice it never feels motivated by the action on screen.
The plethora of simulated sex scenes in Il sesso della strega also work to prohibit its success as a work of Gothic horror. Whenever tension around the central mystery appears to be building Pannaccio includes a prolonged sex scene that halts all narrative momentum. The question of who the murderer is never seems as important as who is sleeping whom, but the latter inquiry is of little consequence narratively since all of the characters share the exact same motive.
Curiously, the dogs in Il sesso della strega are the best part of the film. There’s the dog Twinkie and an unnamed dog in the background of a single wide shot. These dogs, unprofessional performers, add a welcome spontaneity and a touch of realism that simply does not exist elsewhere in Il sesso della strega. The scene where Twinkie is on the bed is a moment every dog owner can relate to and opens the film up to a very human connection with the spectator that had not come before and never comes again in Il sesso della strega.
Il sesso della strega isn’t a very good or even interesting movie beyond its highly superficial pleasures. Regardless, it’s still remarkable how pristine and authoritative the Vinegar Syndrome restoration and home video release is. Even curios from the seventies like Il sesso della strega are in fact worthy of this love and care if only because they so clearly document a moment in time. The fact that a film like Il sesso della strega is so easily accessible is a dream come true.
