For any serious medical diagnosis, it's always best to seek a second opinion, but Carla Gravina takes that bit of wisdom to absurd extremes in The Antichrist. Since doctors can't explain the paralysis that's afflicted her since childhood, she instead seeks treatment from a statue of the Madonna said to have healing powers. But the approach fails, and Gravina decides that if God can't do the trick, she should check out the competition. After she burns an icon of Christ, she becomes easy prey for supernatural forces. Despite the care of maid Alida Valli and uncle Arthur Kennedy, a Roman bishop naturally on guard against demons and their ilk, Gravina begins experiencing strange fits and spitting out blasphemous monologues. "Sects of devil worshippers are springing up everywhere. It's a symptom of the spiritual crisis of our time," Kennedy informs Gravina's family, failing to note that her symptoms also correspond to those found in a popular American film released one year earlier. Could an exorcist be in order? Not quite yet. Instead, Kennedy calls in a hypnotist specializing in past-life therapy to assess the case. "The personality of a dead person is present," he concludes, "...on an unconscious level, of course." Another episode seems to confirm his findings, as Gravina flashes back to a colorful moment from her family's distant past. Channeling the memory of an ancestor, Gravina imagines herself wandering through a landscape seemingly inspired by Led Zeppelin's Houses Of The Holy album cover, then lying on an altar and having sex with a mask-clad man, who forces her to eat a toad's head and lick a goat's ass. Oddly, this seems to have a therapeutic effect, and soon Gravina discards her wheelchair and takes to seducing shaggy-haired teens in a country church. Still, there's a price to be paid in terms of social graces. Though now able to seat herself at the dinner table, Gravina can't make it through a meal without spitting her food everywhere and denouncing guests in a demonic voice. Surely this calls for an exorcist? But no, the Church needs decisive proof, so Gravina is left to terrorize a local witch doctor, attempt the seduction of her effete brother, and inform Kennedy that she's pregnant with the Antichrist. Finally, it's exorcism time, and after a long session in which puke spews, beds levitate, objects fly about the room, and mysterious sores appear, Satan moves on to more hospitable territory, and Gravina regains her ability to walk, although not without losing the ability to projectile-vomit at will.
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