In terms of the plot, acting, and especially the directing, it's quite difficult to know what to make of this film.

At one level, it's a familiar set of nonsense featuring a spooky castle, long-undead characters, gratuitous nudity, very cheap "special" effects and *very* variable levels of acting. However, what makes it stand out for me is the increasing apparent randomness of the scenes - just as if the director had decided to shoot "a bunch of stuff" and then assemble them in some sort of sequence while editing. (e.g. "this spooky guy in the cloak looks good on the battlements against the setting sun - let's drop that in a few times" and "we've got these girls tied up on crosses - let's keep flashing back to that to keep the audience awake", etc...)

Utterly bonkers and quite entertaining if you like this sort of thing, but not a good film!

Centuries ago, a gorgeous witch named Isabella (Rita Calderoni) was staked and burned alive; her lover vowed revenge. In modern times, a man named Jack Nelson (Mickey Hargitay) buys a mountaintop castle and moves there with his niece Laureen (also played by Calderoni) to celebrate her engagement. However, there are occultists on the premises who regularly sacrifice the hearts and eyes of comely female virgins to their exalted "great mistress", Isabella; they hope to restore her to life.

Writer & director Renato Polselli doesn't ever concern himself too much with telling a particularly coherent story, stuffing a lot of exposition into the final few minutes. Rather, he stresses other aspects of the presentation, to the delight of any Eurotrash-horror fan watching. It's very sexy (there's abundant nudity), very gory, and has a nonstop general feeling of weirdness and gloom. Polselli *does* have a way with atmosphere, aided in no small part by his cinematographer Ugo Brunelli. Brunellis' lighting schemes are wonderfully colourful, and are worthy of Mario Bava and Dario Argento at their most stylish. This *is* a gorgeous picture to look at, in more ways than one, with fine use of locations, and a psychedelic touch. There's even some actual intentional comedy, accompanied by a decidedly goofy variation in the otherwise subtle music.

The acting is basically tolerable, although Hargitay (former bodybuilder and husband of starlet Jayne Mansfield) is rather stiff. Also, Stefania Fassio is fatally annoying as motor mouthed airhead Steffy. This character wears out her welcome fairly quickly. William Darni is requisite hero Richard Brenton, and Italian Donald Pleasence lookalike Marcello Bonini Olas is amusing as a scar faced occultist named "Gerg".

Any viewer who adores the sleazier side of world cinema from this era is sure to take a liking to "Black Magic Rites", no matter how muddled the story is.

Six out of 10.

Most people that see this film use the word 'nonsense' to describe it and it's not hard to see why. The Reincarnation of Isabel utilises the age-old horror plot line of a witch being brought back to life; but unlike other films of it's ilk, this one jumps straight in at the reincarnation stage; thus forsaking any explanation as to why the witch was exterminated, and why there are people that want to bring her back. These things are explained somewhat a bit later on; and it's these scenes of 'explanation' that really highlight this film's problem. It's practically impossible to differentiate the flashback sequences from the main action, and if it wasn't for the fact that the woman about to be burnt at the stake was called Isabel, the audience would be none the wiser as to what is actually going on. The film features many scenes that appear to be completely random - some of them may be flashbacks explaining the story, I don't know! However, one thing that I do know is that this isn't a story based film - and when it comes to pure Eurotrash, this film excels!

The film features a very gritty European style, and every scene looks great. The lighting is superb, with several sequences seemingly existing only so the director can show off his impressive lighting techniques. The score is suitably creepy, and this is flanked by some excellent set design. The scenes involving the black magic rites themselves are particularly great because they seem to exist in dreamscape. These scenes look fabulous, and even though they're not making much sense, they still allow the film some credibility. No Eurotrash flick would be complete without gore and nudity, and this film features plenty of both. Beautiful girls wearing little or nothing are plentiful, and the gore tends to be of the 'realistic' kind, meaning that it's not gratuitous; but it looks real, and is all the more shocking for that. The film runs at almost 100 minutes, which is a bit on the long side considering it doesn't really have a plot to speak of. I recommend this film to anyone who likes films to look nice. If you're someone that sees a coherent plot as an essential element for a successful horror movie, then there's a good chance that The Reincarnation of Isabel is not your thing.