Thomas the Possessed (or Thomas and the Bewitched, I have seen both translations) is from director Pupi Averti, who wrote it with his brother Antonio and Giorgio Celli. It was his second film, one he said that was cursed by family issues and money issues.
A new theater company - Edmund Purdom is one of the actors - is about to put on its first performance, the story of a child named Thomas who a woman believes that she has given birth to but who does not exist. They're met by a man who offers to read the fortune of the play. At that seance, they are introduced to Thomas, who has become a real person.
On the way to the town where they will perform, they meet an actor hanging from a tree who claims to be the only survivor of a performance gone wrong, one that ended with the audience murdering all of the actors except for him. This must have happened, as the audience is already attacking the stage before the first scene. This is after they rode a ghost train to the town, so at this point, anything could happen.
From a cemetery with bottles instead of graves, the sexual revolution and a hospice home where the elderly die rapidly, Thomas the Possessed is one strange movie, yet we should accept no less from its director. If it all ends where it begins, we must accept this.
After this failed to find an audience, it would take Averti five years to make his next film, La mazurka del barone, della santa e del fico fiorone. A year later, he would make Bordella and the movie he may be best known for, The House With the Laughing Windows. He's still directing movies today.
For some time, the only way to see this was to rent the copy in the Bologna library, which Averti himself donated. Its production company went out of business and the movie had only played the 1970 film festival in Locarno.
A new theater company - Edmund Purdom is one of the actors - is about to put on its first performance, the story of a child named Thomas who a woman believes that she has given birth to but who does not exist. They're met by a man who offers to read the fortune of the play. At that seance, they are introduced to Thomas, who has become a real person.
On the way to the town where they will perform, they meet an actor hanging from a tree who claims to be the only survivor of a performance gone wrong, one that ended with the audience murdering all of the actors except for him. This must have happened, as the audience is already attacking the stage before the first scene. This is after they rode a ghost train to the town, so at this point, anything could happen.
From a cemetery with bottles instead of graves, the sexual revolution and a hospice home where the elderly die rapidly, Thomas the Possessed is one strange movie, yet we should accept no less from its director. If it all ends where it begins, we must accept this.
After this failed to find an audience, it would take Averti five years to make his next film, La mazurka del barone, della santa e del fico fiorone. A year later, he would make Bordella and the movie he may be best known for, The House With the Laughing Windows. He's still directing movies today.
For some time, the only way to see this was to rent the copy in the Bologna library, which Averti himself donated. Its production company went out of business and the movie had only played the 1970 film festival in Locarno.