The only film I'd seen from Pupi Avati prior to seeing this one was his excellent Giallo 'The House With the Windows that Laugh' and naturally, I had hoped that The Arcane Enchanter may be similar in quality to the earlier Giallo masterpiece. While by no means a bad film, The Arcane Enchanter doesn't portray the mystery and imagination nearly as well as the earlier film did. However, based on the strength of the two films I've seen from him; it's clear that Pupi Avati is a more than capable director, and The Arcane Enchanter is another (in terms of production values) high quality Italian horror film. The plot focuses on religion and black magic and the central character is Giacomo Vigetti. Giacomo is convicted of apparently trying to rape a young girl by the Papal State and is forced to flee. He takes refuge at the home of Arcano Incantatore; an ex-communicated priest. During his stay with the former priest, Giacomo soon realises the reason why he as thrown out of the church; the priest was practicing black magic...
The film exudes a scintillatingly Gothic atmosphere that carries the film even when the plot takes a turn for the less interesting. The Arcane Enchanter is very much a slow burn film, and while sometimes there is enough mystery created to make the audience want to see what is going to happen next; sometimes there isn't, and the film unfortunately falls flat at those points. The themes of horror shown in the movie largely revolve around death and the mystery springs from the ambiguous way that the plot is presented to the viewer. There isn't much in the way of character building on show, and this can sometimes make it hard to really care about the mystery at hand, however. The way that Pupi Avati presents the scares without special effects is well done, although sometimes it feels like a little more was needed. The ending pretty much flows with the rest of the film in that it doesn't end with a bang, and neither does it really tie everything up. Overall, this is certainly a decent film; but unfortunately, unlike The House with the Windows that Laugh, it's not a great one.
