Verdict
Summary
Fairly simplistic and following the basic template of films such as The Amityville Horror, which came the year before, as its model, The Medium certainly doesn’t reinvent the proverbial wheel as far as haunted house / vengeful spirit movies go, but it also doesn’t really feel like a direct rip-off, as so many Italian films of this era tend to feel like. It does its own thing, but at the same time it doesn’t really add much spice or pizzazz, making the film almost inconsequential for fans of the genre. It has a vague sense of dread and fear, and the uncharacteristically upbeat, happy ending is a real surprise.
Plot:
A musician and his son move into a haunted villa.
Review:
An American composer Paul (played by Italian actor Guido Mannari) and his young son Alan (Stefano Mastrogirolamo) move to a sprawling villa in Rome several years after the death of Paul’s wife. Paul hires a pretty young nanny named Laura (Sherry Buchanan) to tutor Alan and to live in the home while he works, but almost right away the three of them begin experiencing strange things around the home: disembodied voices, ghostly apparitions glimpsed through the windows, random attacks by devil dogs around the garden, and various, typical things you only hear about in haunted house movies. It gets bad enough that Paul seeks out a spiritual medium known as Professor Power (!) who has a good reputation as an advisor in those parts, and Power (played by Philippe Leroy) performs a séance and determines that a deeply disturbed spirit of a young woman lives in the house and needs to be settled. Using occult tools and rituals, Professor Power is able to help this innocent family survive their ordeal … at a price.
Fairly simplistic and following the basic template of films such as The Amityville Horror, which came the year before, as its model, The Medium certainly doesn’t reinvent the proverbial wheel as far as haunted house / vengeful spirit movies go, but it also doesn’t really feel like a direct rip-off, as so many Italian films of this era tend to feel like. It does its own thing, but at the same time it doesn’t really add much spice or pizzazz, making the film almost inconsequential for fans of the genre. It has a vague sense of dread and fear, and the uncharacteristically upbeat, happy ending is a real surprise. Director Silivio Amadio’s film is of interest mainly for hardcore Italian horror fans, who may not be familiar with this somewhat obscure title.
Raro Video has just released a Blu-ray edition of The Medium, and the high definition transfer is more than adequate and pleasing to the eye, presented in 1:85:1. There’s an audio commentary by two film historians, the disc’s sole bonus feature.
