Some students are on their way to Paris, taking the scenic route, so it would seem, when they come upon a boarded-up, abandoned house. As it is getting late, they decide to take refuge there. Things are going okay, yet that night, one of the girls has a dream where a Nazi ghost comes upon her, gives her a few slaps and starts kissing her. She bleeds a fair bit, but she loves it, waking up later and thinking nothing more of it. Later, another student named Mark comes upon some Nazi ghosts playing cards, and he decides to play a little Russian Roulette in order to get with a naked ghost girl. Things do not go well, and he gets in a fight with one of his friends and seemingly dies. As the picture moves into its final act, the antics of the ghosts get a little more dangerous, refusing to let the students leave no matter what they try.

Directed by the great Lucio Fulci, Sodoma’s Ghost is one of his tamest productions ever put to film. It still has a fair amount of horror, the usual blood, gore, and grizzly, oozing things, but not as much as one might expect. Compared to a normal Fulci feature, this one is light. Not a bad thing either, as not every movie he ever directed needed to be as gory as all out, but it is, simply put, surprising. Taking that into account, the horror in this movie does not offset the poor story that accompanies it. Sure, some might think Nazi ghosts are all you need to make a successful film, and that is one way to go about it, but there needs to be just a little more to it. That does not mean there is no connective tissue holding it all together, and despite being a bit dull and maybe a wee bit overlong, it has enough nudity and violence to keep one’s attention. Additionally, a better conclusion to end it all on might have worked better than what was given.

With a cast of essentially unknowns, the acting is not stellar, but it’s not terrible, and whatever deficiencies come from the cast could be overlooked because the script is as poor as it is. Some of the dialogue could have used a little punching up, and the story, as mentioned, was not as strong as it could have been, but the cast had an easygoing manner. There seemed to be a bit of a rapport among them, and it came across as genuine, which was a plus as it made them more than just bodies to feed the machine, so to speak.

The one thing Fulci does successfully in this film is create that perfect haunted-house aura. There is a great atmosphere about it all; even when the students are outside the house in broad daylight, one can sense the menace coming from the apparently abandoned building. The house and what it holds is as much a character in this film as the rest, and whether it is watching a Nazi orgy or the sight of young people slowly going mad, it is emphasized by the setting. Overall, Sodoma’s Ghost or Il fantasma di Sodoma is not the best feature to ever sprout from Fulci’s creative genius, but it is still worth checking out when there is nothing better to watch.

2.5 out of 5