The running time on the Finnish release is 84 minutes. According to Sweet Cosy Video, that is also the running time on the Swedish and Danish VHS releases:
http://www.sweetcozyvideo.com/doSearch.asp?rdir=Pier+CarpiThanks to Marc, we also know that the Italian Cinehollywood release runs 84 minutes too, and I'm assuming that this is also the running time on the Greek Cinehollywood tape.
Now, this is where my comparison of the Midnight Video version and the Belgian release really gets interesting because the Belgian version is actually longer at
87 minutes!
So what's the difference? Well, I'll tell you: the Belgian VHS release includes an extra scene that runs 3 minutes and 14 seconds. This scene occurs at around 46 minutes into the film - right after the scene where Marisa Mell unsuccessfully confronts Lara Wendel, and before the scene where Lara finds her burned doll.
It's a coven scene where all the witches are gathered in their white robes while some awesome drum music by Maestro Cipriani plays:
A young girl played by Carmen Russo is to be initiated into the coven:
Carmen strips naked and lies down on an altar as Lucifer enters:
Lucifer starts kissing Carmen and all this is clearly upsetting Anne Heywood, who hates how giving herself to the devil has ruined the lives of herself and her friends. Distraught, she cries out to Lucifer: "No! You won't defile her! You won't destroy another girl's life!"
Anne and two other coven members then stand up against Lucifer and approach him with their swords pointed at his face. He then vanishes into air - without making Carmen Russo one of his devil brides:
This is actually a very important scene. It's the first time we actually see the women defy Lucifer and this action is what really sets all the trouble in full gear. It is after this scene that Lara Wendel's character is really getting aggresive; with Lucifer using her as his instrument to get revenge on the brides that have betrayed him. This scene marks an important turning point in the film and is even referred to later scenes, like when Frank Finlay tells Anne Heywood that "three of you have defied Him", so it's very odd that such an important sequence ended up cut from most versions!
Additionally, the removal of this scene pretty much leaves out all of Carmen Russo's performance as the only other scene she appears in is the opening credits satanic dance.
One other minor difference between the Belgian and MV versions is that the opening credits of the Belgian VHS are in English, while the end credits are in Italian. On the MV version, both the opening and ending credits are in Italian.
The question that remains is whether or not an even longer version of the film exists. Several Italian film databases list it as being 106 minutes! So is that an error, or does exist somewhere? Personally, I'm inclined to think that a longer version
does exist. Maybe not as long as 106 minutes but probably a bit longer than 87 minutes. Why? Well, because the film frequently feels as if it's been shortened. Look at Frank Finlay's character for example. He only appears in a single scene but we never know who or what he actually is. He also appears to have some history with Anne Heywood's character but this is never explained.
But more importantly, there should be some more scenes dealing with the character of Anna (or Almarisa as she is named in the Italian version), the daughter of Valentina Cortese's character. She, like Lara Wendel's Daria, is Lucifer's daughter and is a very important character in the story. Anna is shown to be the exact opposite of Daria. Whereas Daria embraces her growing powers and the evil side in her, Anna is more kind and human. Rather than submitting to the dark side, she chooses to take her own life. Unfortunately, though, Anna hardly has a word of dialogue and her appearance is super-brief, which feels very strange. Contrasting her struggle with her dark side against Daria's increasing love for her evil powers would probably have made the film more effective. Likewise, it could have been a good idea to show Daria as more normal and nice during the early scenes. That way her change into an evil child would have been more frightening than with her acting somewhat mean from the get-go. Well, who knows? Maybe I'm wrong but I believe that if a longer version exists, then it probably has more footage of Anna, which I think would enrich the film a great deal. These few complaints aside, though, I still love this film. Now more than ever actually, and the soundtrack is absolutely spellbinding!
