Posted: 07/23/2004

Magdalena: Possessed by the Devil

(1974)

by Barry Meyer

From Germany comes this infamous answer to The Exorcist. Available here.

In this notorious German version of The Exorcist, an old man is murdered and crucified in the dark alleys of a German village. Across town, in a boarding school for orphan girls, his teenage granddaughter Magdalena is attacked and raped by an unseen entity. With her soul possessed, the virginal young girl’s behavior begins to change, exuding alternate personalities, and in an instant she can become a sexual fiend, spewing profanities that would make even Linda Blair blush. During these bouts of possession, the girl rips off her clothes in a sexual frenzy (apparently, satanic possession also gives young virginal types some sturdy breast implants), after which she would fall into a slumber, oblivious to her previous sexed-up performance. When a doctor, assigned to examine the girl’s erratic behavior, falls for the devilish Lolita, he soon becomes a pawn in her deadly sadistic games.

Magdalena is the rarely seen sexploitation import from notorious German sleaze master Walter Boos — known for his several naughty “Schoolgirl Reports” sex films. Clearly, another rip-off attempt to latch on to the success of The Exorcist. Only, in his version, Boos side-stepped the gory gimmickry of the other horror copycats, and kicked up the kinkiness a notch, delivering a wickedly sexy performance from the redheaded fox, Dagmar Hedrich. Her performance proved to be a little too hot and heavy for the foreign audiences, and Magdalena was edited and retitled (Beyond the Darkness, and also Devil’s Female) for its release here. The full version has rarely been seen in its sexy all-togethers since. But now the folks at Midnight Video have gathered up the entire footage and put it all together on DVD, in its sexploitative entirety — uncut and unedited! It’s a must see for horror fans who like their scares with a good dose of exploitive sleaze.

Barry Meyer is a writer possessed by the tortuous spirit of the Jersey Devil.

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