Il Demonio (1963)

Director: Brunello Rondi
Country: Italy

If you want to know where all those witchcraft-posession and alike modern movies come from, you have to see Brunello Rondi's "Il Demonio", a film about superstition, witchcraft and an exorcism. Certainly the most famous film about exorcism is William Friedkin's blockbuster "The Exorcist" and possibly the best known film about witchcraft is Roman Polanski's American debut "Rosemary's Baby", but Brunello Rondi not only made "Il Demonio" involving both themes, 10 and 9 years before them respectively but also he added the social reality of the poor country life in Italy. 

The film takes action in a rural community in Italy and it is about a woman obsessed with an engaged man who has rejected her many times, in order to destroy his relationship, she invokes the invisible forces, and apparently she becomes possesed by the devil (or by some sort of demon at least) 

Full of powerful close-ups and an impressive acting by Daliah Lavi who shows a great use of the pantomime technique, especially in the exorcism scenes, "Il Demonio" was a groundbreaking film and to my surprise it contains many references to "The Exorcist" or better said Mr. William Friedkin appearently took ('cause he has never mentioned this film as a direct influence in the making of The Exorcist) a lot of angles, concepts and even scenes from Rondi's film! specifically the exorcism scene in the church when the posssesed girl walks in a spider-walk-style! It sounds familiar?

Definitely "Il Demonio" could fit into the Italian neo-realism era, 'cause it portrays perfectly well how Catholic uneducated people thought at the time, and maybe how many catholics around the world and particularly in Latin America (where a huge chunk of Catholics live) still have a huge amount of superstition beliefs. I wish I would have seen "Il Demonio" before seeing "The Exorcist" so in case you haven't seen the latter, now you know which one to see first.