A young woman participates (unknowingly) in a satanic ceremony and gets possessed by the spirit of her late father.

The big issue with this film is whether or not it ripped off "The Exorcist". Some say it did, and can point to such scenes as the "reverse head" murder as evidence. Writer (and star) Paul Naschy claimed he had written the script earlier and it just was not filmed at the time.

Troy Howarth sees something of a middle ground, and suspects that Naschy had read the book but not seen the movie. As such, certain elements would have been lifted. Now, not having read the novel, I do not know hoe much it differs from the film, but assuming there is a great deal of overlap, it does make sense that uncredited source material might result in a similar movie.

The truth of the matter, though, is that it makes no difference. Whether it is a ripoff or just a similar theme, the movie is a lot of fun. A priest acting as a detective, a 1970s possession, and lots of good, clean European cinematography.

Sure, this is not the classic "The Exorcist" is, but it might just be more fun. We never get anything nearly as scary, and the Satanic elements make it in many ways more interesting than a simple possession.

The Gibson family are rich, decadent and dysfunctional. Youngest daughter Leila (a convincing performance by foxy brunette Grace Mills) is especially wild: her fiancé Richard practices the black arts and takes Leila to a debauched satanic ceremony. Pretty soon Leila starts acting strange: she says mean and spiteful things in a vulgar tongue, throws temper tantrums, and has severe seizures. Her mother Patricia (ravishing Maria Perschy) and sister Deborah (hot blonde Maria Kosti) are understandably worried. They call upon longtime friend Father Adrian Dunning (excellently played by Spanish horror icon Paul Naschy in a rare good guy role) to save Leila's soul before it's too late. Director Juan Bosch grounds the fantastic premise in a believable everyday world setting, which in turn gives the story a substantial additional credibility. Bosch earns bonus credit for handling the potentially lurid subject matter with admirable taste and restraint. Moreover, this film makes a strong and provocative point that mankind's flawed nature and immorality perpetuate the existence of evil (Leila becomes possessed by the spirit of her deceased father who hand incestuous longings for her). The gradual build-up leads to an especially chilling and unnerving third act; the climactic exorcism is quite tense and rousing. Francisco Sanchez's slick cinematography and Alberto Arguda's spooky funky-ripping score are both up to par. Nice ambiguous ending, too.

Suspense, mystery, shocks and grisly horror is this middling terror film . It results to be a creepy movie plenty of horrible and disgusting images . This filthy and spooky movie concerns about Grace Mills ( a Linda Blair character lookalike) , she's a young with unsettling problems , at the beginning she has a car crash in an accident along with her boyfriend and then she results wounded . Meanwhile, a satanic cult in the small village commits a series of ominous crimes that have the Police Inspector baffled , as there appears various head-spinning corpses . The dead hold spitting signs on their tombs as ¨Bitch¨ and ¨Son of bitch¨. Her mental problems and intervention an Anglican priest (Paul Naschy , a Father Karras-alike) lead to an act of possession . The mother ( the late Maria Perschy who worked for Howard Hawks and here plays as an Ellen Burstyn role-alike ) who has two daughters (Maria Kosti and Grace Mills)and another son adopted is worried and asks help for her small daughter, the latter is possessed and Naschy attempt to free her from possession by the devil suffering from the effects of being deeply harassed . She's throughly possessed and the Anglican tries to help the lass. An exorcism by the Father exorcist seems to be the only mean to heal the young . The priest suffering incredible risks trying to unravel mystery of demon living inside the daughter.

This terrifying exploitation picture displays eerie horror ,witchcraft, grisly killing, satanism and lots of blood . This is a fairly suspenseful and horrifying story, based on a supposedly true flick. This tale about a young girl who is possessed by a malevolent spirit begins well and grows more and more until the creepy and ghastly finale .Revolting, horrible scenes and nasty images take place on orgy scenes worshipping a rare idol . Mediocre performance of Paul Naschy or Jacinto Molina . The late Naschy was a good professional , writing, filmmaking and acting about hundred titles , mainly in terror genre. ¨Exorcismo¨ is written by Molina along with 21 screenplays as ¨Mark of Wolfman¨, ¨Night of Walpurgis¨, ¨Vengeance of the mummy¨, ¨Licantropo¨, among them . He directed 13 films as ¨The Cantabros¨, ¨Return of Wolfman¨, ¨The Beast and the magic sword¨ and several others.

¨Exorcismo¨is made in ¨The Exorcist¨ style , its an early exploitation , in fact in Spain was previously exhibited and as Jacinto Molina told was written three years before . The Exorcist spawned countless imitations and rip-offs, , as in Spain were made three at the same time , as ¨ Devil play¨ by Jorge Darnell (74),¨Endemoniada ¨ by Amando De Ossorio(74) and ¨The Spiritist¨(1975) . ¨Exorcismo ¨ packs colorful scenarios filmed in England with a lush mansion and sinister and mysterious atmosphere with acceptable cinematography by Francisco Sanchez , though cheesy special effects on the levitation scenes. Creepy and frightening soundtrack fitting to terror scenes . Acceptable and scary make-up by Adolfo Ponte .The motion picture is regularly directed by Juan Bosch. He's a Spanish craftsman, working from the 70s in all kind of genres and B movies. Rating : 4, 5 , Average . Pretty grim but interesting for genre aficionados and Paul Naschy fans.