User Reviews

Contains Spoilers

What a masterpiece offers Polselli with this film! A man (isarco ravaioli) wants to commit suicide due the coldheartness and egoism of his fiancee, played by Rita Calderoni (with short hair!) After he "plays" a few times russian roulette without the intentioned effect.., he calls Calderoni and tells her he wants to kill himself, she visits him without knowing what awaits her.. the man takes his knife and tortures her a bit with his knife..then he stabs himself in the stomach..and dies..or not?. Rita wants to get rid of the corpse and hides the corpse in a chest. But she gets more problems when she notices a man from her window who has seen everything. the crazy man (as if he came from an italian comedy) is a wacky guy, who seems to take everything cool and not serious is invited to come in and starts to play the sadist..he throws some meatpieces on rita´s nude body just to feed the dog, and after that when Calderonis "slave", a black woman visits them, commands her to whip calderoni. after this, calderoni wants to make it that the black woman was the murder, but the woman(her personal "plaything" by the way..) has no interest to help her.. Rita starts to get crazy and thinks the corpse has disappeared and has just drugged her to fool her..another time she sees the corpes in the bathtub instead of the chest. While all this happens , meanwhile some hippies have gathered together in the living room and dance to some beat (excellent music by the way!) one of them explains their life philosophy regarding the trouble with the corpse: "This is not our world, or world is love..."(!!) .Finally Rita and the man have the idea to cook the corpse and then cut it in pieces. but they don´t really do it.. Suddenly (Surprise!) the "dead" man appears and quite alive! The man has just simulated his death, and has hired the other guy..both have planed this together. but intended things go into another direction..suddenly the man is then on ritas sides and explains he loves her and now wants to protect her. At the End he kills him(..and this time he´s really dead). Rita, actually not very thankfull for this deed, simply wants to call the police. the man then says: "It´s to cold for me in this room..,i have to get out here" (Meaning the coldheartness of Rita) and joins then the hippies in the living room!!!

Polselli said that severall versions should have been made of "La Verita Secondo Satana", also with x-rated scenes (and that is not really a surprise if you see Polselli´s "Oscenita"..). Watching the (unfortunately) uncomplete and heavily cut version of LA Verita Secondo SAtana in german language, shows some alternative scenes fragments.. for example in this version, the dance scenes with the hippies dont appear at all, instead of it: very short fragments of a mass orgy this seems heavily cut and is very possible hardcore in the original version , but these scenes don´t appear at all in the "uncut" version of the italian version.

The Truth According to Satann (it was originally released as The Truth According to Satan and this is the censored revised title) is about how Roibert (Isarco Ravaioli) believes that his depression is the result of his constantly on-the-make ex-lover Diana (Rita Calderoni). He tries to shoot himself in a game of Russian Roulette and fails. He also lives when he tries to hang himself when she opens the door, then lays all the blame on her for everything.

This being a movie by Renato Polselli, of course Roibert has interrupted Diana in the midst of her romance/BDSM relationship with Yanita (Marie-Paule Bastin). But this is where Roibert turns the tables, as he strips her and just when you think he's going to kill her, he stabs himself and makes sure to get her prints all over the knife and his blood all over her.

The movie shifts gears when it turns out that next door neighbor Totoletto (Sergio Ammirata) has seen the entire thing and decides to torture Diana with this knowledge, all while he remains obsessed over his diet of eating two eggs every hour on the hour, quacking like a duck and calling her cabbagehead.

Calderoni is a real trooper in this. Beyond the knife play already mentioned, she's covered in blood and then showered while fully clothed, then has dogs eat raw meat off of her body. She also has numerous near-mental breakdowns while Polselli edits in scenes of warfare and the origins of how Roibert and Diana got together. He even has Totoletto try and turn Yanita from slave to master, but Diana has too strong of a personality for that.

If I tell you it all ends with red skies and dancing hippies, will it make any more sense?

According to a great interview that Jay Slater did with the director, "Because of the word gospel in the title, La verita' secondo Satana was instantly accused of blasphemy and its distribution was very limited. Once considered a lost title, Polselli's film was broadcast on the smallest Italian television networks during the early 80s. To bypass censorship and distribution hassles, Polselli shot three different versions and although the movie was released five times during the 70s, the director added new footage to each print, while deleted certain scenes. The hardest print of La Verita' secondo Satana features a close-up of the female orgasm. To achieve this, Polselli filmed the actress's face, body and pubic region in extreme detail as the female orgasm is less evident than the male. Polselli is proud to be one of the first hardcore directors to film such a steamy scene."