Issue #56, Het Huis van de Duivel (House of the Devil), is one of the most atmospheric and consistently stylish entries in the Oltretomba Speciaal series of sexy, horrific fumetti. As usual, the cover is of high standard, yet here the interior art looks fabulous as well, a series of wonderfully moody panels throughout. There is also a nicely intriguing, engaging and suitably sleazy storyline, involving witchcraft, curses, revenge and some nicely tacky eroticism, with its incestuous implications, masturbation during satanic rituals, raped nuns, sadomasochistic servants and some underaged sexuality.
Hungary, 1866. Outside the hospital, Count Petrof Nikolajev makes the acquaintance of Jlef, an enigmatic gypsy who is accompanied by a monkey. Both men just have become proud fathers to their newborn daughters, and the Count offers the gypsy a ride in his coach to Budapest. The strange man accepts, providing that he is allowed to make one stope, once the moon is full. During their journey, the two men marvel at the coincidence of both their girls being born at the same time. Night falls and the coach stops at the ruined remains of an old church in the middle of the dense forest. The gypsy explains to the Count that he is bound to keep an old gypsy oath: for 9 generation his family has been deprived a female descendant and Jlef has thus been forced to resort to black magic to provide him with a daughter. Now he must keep his end of the pact, he must sacrifice his most precious possession, his monkey. And thus the animal is nailed to an old altar, hanging by the neck, and burned alive. As a terrible thunderstorm breaks loose, the saddened gypsy plays his violin while his favoured pet burns and an aghast Count Petrof looks on. Despite the terrible onslaught of the storm, with rain, hail and snow pouring down, the fire beneath the tortured monkey keeps burning. As the coach finally leaves the terrible scene, a horrible laughter is heard drowning out the noise of the storm. This so disturbs the horses that they bolt in fear, the carriage careening across the cliffside road until it finally plunges over the edge and down into the depths, killing all.
Nine years later, somewhere in the vast expanses of the Hungarian poesta, a young girl, Sonja plays in the garden of the Nikolajev mansion. She is the 9-year old daughter of the deceased Count Petrof, a sad and lonely girl watched over by her over-protective mother, the beautiful widowed Countess Nikolajev. That same afternoon, the servants discover a young nun, unconscious by the edge of the forest. Taken into the kitchen, the young woman, Sister Anita relates how the boat she was traveling on, was attacked by bandits. The men were killed, the women raped and when the lecherous villains had even desecrated the youngest, innocent girls, they had finally turned their attention to the young nun. Her habit violently ripped open, she was repeatedly raped before finally being able to escape.
Sister Anita is given refuge at the mansion and soon strikes up a remarkable friendship with shy Sonja, who seems to blossem under the attention of the virtuous young woman, growing out of her melancholic moods. But once alone in her room during the cold, stormswept nights, Sister Anita seems a lot less innocent and friendly and is revealed to be a cunning, malevolent witch out for revenge on the Nikolajev family. As the mansion is silent around her, she performs diabolic rituals while naked, masturbating to the memory of her dead husband, who is revealed to be none other that the gyspy, Jlef. These rituals and incantations revolve around a mysterious potion the young witch has concocted. In a rainswept flashback, she is shown digging up the grave of her beloved, cutting out his heart and using it in the spells and rituals needed to create the potion. Now, mixed with some hairs of young Sonja, the potion is ready and her revenge is about to begin. Sonja comes more and more under the witch's influence while her mother spends all her time consuming a sadomasochistic relationship with Branko, the majordomo, ignorant of her daughter's plight.
Then, upon her return to the mansion after a short absence, overseeing the family estate, the Countess is startled to see how her young girl has changed. During dinner, she notices that the still only 9-year old girl has developed some prematurely womanly shapes and having the girl undress later in her bedroom, discovers that Sonja has developed ample breasts and pubic hair. The family physician attributes these changes to a strange but harmless glandular condition and soon the Countess is off shagging her insatiable lover. But as time passes, it becomes obvious that Sonja is ageing far too rapidly. Meanwhile, the witch's rituals continue and upon the 9th use of the strange potion, the decaying form of her dead husband appears, telling her that she is merely a part in a far greater scheme.
As once more a storm breaks loose, a repentant Countess realizes she has been neglecting her daughter and wants to make amends. As she checks on the girl in her room, she is startled to discover Sister Anita standing over the apparently sleeping girl, naked and performing some sinister incantations. As the Countess drags the witch away from her daughter's bed, she sees that the girl has now aged beyong recognition and turned into a horribly disfigured old hag. As the storm rages, the possessed Sonja takes Anita into the woods, where they tie the Countess to a tree to be burned like a witch. It is revealed that Jlef was a mere vessel to carry out the revenge of his ancestor, Jlena Magiar, burned as a witch in 1666, after a confession extracted by the most gruesome tortures and a conviction sealed by the testimony of a member of the Nikolajev family. In an attempt to save his newborn daughter, Jlef switched the girls at birth, but the old witch was not fooled. So it now appears that the vindictive Anita has carried out her revenge upon her own daughter. Repentant the young witch manages to trick Jlena Magiar to sleep and kills her, killing her own daughter, now beyoing redemption, in the process. The Countess escapes and is reunited with her daughter in the gypsy camp, Anita takes up her vow as a nun (for real, this time) and seeks peace in an isolated convent high in the mountains.
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