Director Marcello Andrei and his co-writers originally conceived the film with an original idea of a dying woman passing the child she is bearing to another person.[3] Giuseppe Pulieri stated that the script he worked one was ruined by a producers attempt to exploit the film as part of the "demonic possession" cycle of films.[3] Pulieri stated that "The script stayed ten years in the drawer, I even pestered Raymond Stross into making it, to no avail ... they altered the story, the in all the usual bullshit: the witches, the sorcerer, the special effects..."[3]
A Black Ribbon for Deborah was distributed theatrically in Italy by Alpherat on 26 September 1974.[1] The film grossed a total of 118,676,000 Italian lire domestically.[1] Italian film historian Roberto Curti described the film as passing "almost unnoticed on its theatrical release".[3]
The film was first released on home video in the United States and the United Kingdom in the early 1980s.[3] It was released in the United Kingdom as The Torment.[1]
Reception
AllMovie defines the film a "low-wattage horror piece".[4]