Baba Yaga, Devil Witch (1973), directed by Corrado Farina.
An Italian supernatural thriller adapted from a comic strip: "Valentina" by Guido Crepax.
A fashion photographer falls under the spell of a lesbian witch. Her camera is hexed and a dominatrix devil doll watches her. Must she submit to the carnal desires of Carroll Baker? Yes, she must. We hope a stalwart boyfriend will rescue her. Eventually.
It has some promising bits but is mostly just ridiculous. It starts out kind of whimsical and arty, becoming darker with time. Just as the plot starts to move the characters have to stop and debate racism and revolution. The groovy fashion ambience and precious radical poses are hard to take.
Some nudity. Models! That's the way to do it. No gore, although there is an S&M flogging scene. During erotic encounters they switch to b&w snapshots and ink drawings, which is kind of clever, linking back to the photography plot and comic origins.
Available on Blu-ray from Blue Underground but my thumbnails are from their DVD. It has only a dubbed English track and no subtitles. Dubbing tends to make a movie seem less serious, so the Blu-ray might be a good upgrade for that reason alone.
The extras:
The director talks about what he intended: closing the circle. The comic was inspired by cinema editing and he wanted to turn the illustrations back into film again.
Neither of the lead actresses were his first choice, but both worked out.
The final edit was not his doing.
The actress who plays the living dominatrix doll: they asked her agent, "Will she do nude scenes?" He said: "Try and stop her."
A history of comics with emphasis on Guido Crepax.
Deleted and censored scenes. Both lead actresses did a few seconds of full frontal that had to be cut.
Netflix has the DVD but not the Blu-ray.