Directed by Renato Polselli "Reincarnation of Isabel" has been long considered to be missing,disappearing after its failed initial showing in 1972-1973.The film is pretty confusing and badly written,so fans of bizarre Italian exploitation won't be disappointed.There is some gore and witchery plus plenty of sleaze.The women in this film take almost every opportunity to strip down-and that's not a bad thing in my book.A Satanic cult,as a part of an ancient rite to revive a witch who died 400 years earlier,must sacrifice a group of seven virgins.Trouble erupts when one of the prospective victim's lovers interrupts the rituals,and the witches turn into vampires and wreak havoc on the town.Renato Polselli managed to create a dreamlike atmosphere punctuated with many scenes of naked women attacked,raped,terrorized and murdered.Overall,I enjoyed this film and you should too,if you like Italian sleaze.

"Don't try and understand it," says one character here, standing in what may be another dimension while green and red light plays over his face. I think I'll take his advice.

Although this doesn't quite top Renato Polselli's Mania in terms of delirious insanity, it gives it a good try! Set...somewhere...it involves a young girl being taken to a castle by her stepfather (Micky Hargity) 'round about the time where a young girl is sacrificed by four cloaked cultists who remove her heart and promise that a girl called Isabel will be born again. Isabel by the way is chained up to a wall where the cultists live (it might not actually be a place at all), and she has a huge burned hole in her chest, like someone has stubbed out the world's biggest cigar there. This being a Gothic horror film, the young girl (Laureen) is either Isabel reincarnated or her doppelganger. I'm none the wise even though I just watched the thing. Oh, and someone gets attacked by bats and their heart ripped out by an unknown person in the real world. Jesus. One paragraph in and I'm already struggling.

Before the plot completely unravelled I managed to understand that Hargity had bought a bit of a castle but there was a strange cultist guy living in another bit of the castle. There are also seven virgins there to celebrate Laureen's engagement to Richard.There was also a creepy caretaker type and a guy with a twitch who fancied an over the top ditzy girl who both supplied comedy at all the wrong times. We also get a very lengthy flashback where Isabel is impaled and burned at the stake which goes on forever but also seems to highlight that everyone in this film is a reincarnation of someone from 500 years ago. I've got a headache now.

I'm still making this sound straightforward! With all the time travelling, flashbacks, dimension hopping, screaming, comedy and people possibly being vampires but possibly not being vampires, you'd be forgiven for thinking that this film is bad, but it's not! I doesn't make any sense, but the whole film from start to finish seems to be intended as some sort of visual LSD tripe. Polselli's can barely film a scene in a normal fashion, with rapid editing from multiple angles (including upside down for extra insanity), bathing people in gel lighting that constantly changes, or intercutting scenes so rapidly you'd swear you were going to have a seizure.

Between this and the film Mania I'm not sure what Polselli was aiming for, but I have no regrets going along for the ride. Both of these films are amongst the most insane, entertaining films Italian cinema has to offer. I've no doubt left out about 90% of what happens in this film.

Well you sure can't fault director Renato Polselli for not trying to entertain us that's for sure. The Reincarnation of Isabel like his deranged giallo Delirium before it is a non-stop barrage of sleazy thrills and gore. Polselli was certainly not a director who could be accused of being understated. His films are deranged and borderline incomprehensible, and full to the brim with naked women. He was clearly an unashamed exploitation film-maker who just got down to it and served up the goods with no consideration whatsoever to good taste and decency. But you know what? His movies do have a definite style – albeit a pretty haphazard one. The Reincarnation of Isabel is a perfect example. It's about a group of vampires who keep the body of a witch in the basement of a castle, awaiting a chance to resurrect her with the blood of several virgins. Cue the arrival of a party of knuckle-heads with the requisite gaggle of – deeply unconvincing – virgins.

I suppose it's a rip off of Mario Bava's Black Sunday in a way. Not that you'll probably notice as other than the witch idea it's a pure sleaze-fest with some gory violence chucked in for good measure. Every woman who appears in it gets naked and is terrorised at some point. Its sexist stuff of the first order naturally, although not quite as misogynistic as Delirium. The story sort of makes sense some of the time but you'll be forgiven for wondering what's going on a lot of the rest of the time. Polselli's haphazard style is the reason for this, as scenes are edited together bizarrely and characters act in ways that can only be described as insane. The film stars the always entertaining Mickey Hargitay and Rita Calderoni, both of who appear in Delirium along with most of the other cast members from that film. I was also astonished at the appalling haircuts sported by most of the girls – in virtually every other Italian production from the time the women all look like they have been groomed by super-chic stylists; the chicks here look more like they have been dragged through a hedge. But what the hell, they all get naked right? Anyway, the soundtrack is pretty good - quite moody and at times psychedelic, while the camera work is sometimes inventive and the dungeon set is admittedly pretty funky.

Overall, it's a very commendable example of Euro-Trash. Senseless? Yes. Gratuitous? Of course. Laughable? At times. Entertaining? Oh yeah.