Review: Satanico Pandemonium

A nun named Sister Maria (Cecilia Pezet) goes for a walk outside the convent and encounters a naked Satan (Enrique Rocha), who offers her an apple. She declines, but for some reason Satan keeps turning up. Tempting her. At one point Satan even disguises himself as another nun who professes her love for Sister Maria, leading to a lovemaking session. Basically, this chick is possessed by the Devil, and she becomes absolutely hysterical, eventually leading to the deflowering of a young stable boy and shocking violence.

 

Another day, another kinky nun film. This 1975 offering from prolific Mexican writer/director Gilberto Martínez Solares (the insane-sounding “Mystery in the Bermuda Triangle”, starring legendary luchador Mil Mascaras!) is the film that inspired the name of Salma Hayek’s snake-dancing character in Robert Rodriguez’s “From Dusk ‘Til Dawn” (written by Quentin Tarantino). There’s absolutely no other connection between the two films, so one guesses QT just thought it was a cool name. It’s deathly dull to start, but once this thing gets going it’s pretty nuts, if not quite as raunchy as one might like. Let’s just say when the lead actress strips and starts flogging herself…don’t expect an entire film like that. Most of the naughty stuff after that is saved for the finale. Yeah, she does unmentionable things to a teenager at one point, but I wouldn’t call that ‘erotic’. That’s just creepy as hell.

 

It’s been crisply shot by Jorge Stahl Jr. (who lensed “Missing in Action 2: The Beginning”), with terrific lighting for something that spends a lot of time inside a convent. Lead actress Cecilia Pezet has an interestingly sad quality to her that is quite appealing. Well, until she goes off the deep end and starts murdering people. That’s when this thing really takes off. There’s a particularly nice, gory stabbing of a young man as our lead protagonist proves to be quite the violent sex predator, albeit the Devil is making her do it. Literally. In more ways than one. On the downside, Enrique Rocha makes for a pretty boring Satan. He’s remarkably unremarkable.

 

An interesting – if simple – idea for a film, and a good lead performance in this loopy satanic ‘nunsploitation’ film from Mexico. It takes a little while to get going, but this is pretty crazy stuff and good-looking too. Worth a look if you’re curious, but you do wish it were sexier and had a more interesting actor playing Satan. Still, I came around on this one after that slow start. The finale is particularly bonkers. The screenplay is by the director, along with son Adolfo Martinez Solares. What a lovely family affair it is, too.

 

Rating: B-

 

 

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