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Nunsploitation. Who doesn't love it? Who doesn't thoroughly enjoy the nudity, the sacrilege, the blasphemy, the gore, the lesbian love scenes, the bad acting?

Well, I guess a lot of people don't. Certainly faithful hardcore Catholics would be mightily offended by the stuff if they ever saw it, or even knew of its existence. (It's easy for us genre-loving hipsters to forget that, in the big scheme of things, we're talking about some pretty rarefied stuff here.) For sure the pope's head would explode if he were forced to watch, say, ALUCARDA. And certainly if there's a God he must be mighty miffed over a movie like... SATANICO PANDEMONIUM.

This 1975 film was made by director Gilberto Martinez Solares. Sort of a Mexican Jess Franco, the late Solares is said to have been one of the world's most prolific filmmakers, with nearly 200 features to his credit. Apparently, SATANICO was his only nunsploitation film.

The plot is simple almost to the point of non-existence. One day, Sister Maria, a comely young nun (Cecilia Pezet) is out in the countryside picking flowers, appreciating nature, looking around and smiling sweetly at everything, obviously without a care in her vacant, pretty little head, when suddenly, the most horrifying thing a young, innocent nun could possibly be confronted with appears before her – a naked man. A naked man who looks a lot like Engelbert Humperdinck, no less. (For all you kids, I should explain that Humperdinck was a famous singer back around the time when this film was made – a glorified lounge lizard who somehow made it to international stardom.) Sister Maria stops dead in her tracks, eyes bugging out, beyond horrified, looking like someone just whapped her on the head with a frying pan. It could be the traumatic exposure to a wang, but I think she's more likely freaked by the naked man's very '70s, blow dried, lacquered hair, which would have looked mighty bizarre back around the time of the inquisition (it's quite a while before you realize the film is supposed to take place centuries ago). Anyway, naked man says nothing. He merely takes a bite from an apple and then offers it to Sister Maria.

Uh-oh. Catching that whiff of brimstone in the air? Who is this naked man? Could he be... SATAN??? Of course it is, you putz!

So the sweet little sis runs off, but is confronted by El Diablo (Enrique Rocha) again. She tries to resist, crying and praying all the way, but it's no contest. Soon one of the other nuns comes to Sister Maria's room, confesses her love, and is all over the helpless girl like ugly on an ape, as Sandy Cheeks would say. But halfway through the lesbian seduction, we see that the other nun is no longer a nun – she's turned into the Devil! What a burn, so to speak. After that, the jig's up, and poor Sister Maria is Satan's bitch for sure.

She tries to repent, putting on a spiked belt and whipping herself, moaning and gasping in a suspiciously sensual manner, but it's no use. The film rather oddly becomes a study in sexual frustration for the naughty nun thereafter. She tries to seduce another sister, but is rejected and stabs the girl.

She later climbs into the bed of a sleeping adolescent boy, but he desperately fights her off and, again, she is forced to teach her would-be lover a lesson with a suspiciously handy knife. I find this scene most puzzling, as I was once an adolescent boy myself, and I clearly remember what it was like, and I do believe that if I'd ever been awakened in the middle of the night being fondled and kissed by a beautiful, naked young woman, my reaction would not have been one of horror. I would not have pushed her away and kicked her and screamed as if she were Bea Arthur. No, I think I would have had quite a different reaction.

Call me crazycuckooinsane.

The film goes from there to an ambiguous was-it-real-or-an-illusion conclusion, which the filmmakers were obliged to use so they could get the flick past the censors. It's easy to forget from this jaded vantage point in time and space how shocking this film and others like it must have been back when it was made.

Pretty Cecilia Pezet gives a decent performance as Sister Maria, although she seems to totally forget the fact that she's being harassed by Satan between encounters, reverting to her original, carefree self at a moment's notice. She's also topless in about every other scene and totally naked in one, which I thought you'd like to know. Enrique Rocha is quite good as the dark and handsome Beelzbub. He doesn't do much but appear out of nowhere to brood and occasionally smirk slightly, but it works.

All in all, the film is competent enough not to qualify as uber-campy (just mildly campy), so it's not really good for too many derisive chuckles, if that's what you're looking for. (The only outstanding goof I can think of is a shot of the nuns singing while the soundtrack features modal chanting, rather than the hymn the nuns are probably actually performing, judging from the movement of their lips and the fact that one sister is accompanying them on an organ that you can't hear.) The pace of the film is leisurely, and director Solares likes establishing shots. Long, multiple establishing shots. Still, there's entertainment value aplenty here, especially if you're a demented lapsed Catholic like me.

The Mondo Macabro DVD presents the film in anamorphic widescreen. Unfortunately, there's something wrong with the transfer. There's a slight doubling or blurring to hard edges, which is particularly noticeable on a 16X9 TV. It's not so bothersome as to be unwatchable, especially since this isn't exactly deathless cinema we're talking about, but it's still a bit of a shame. The mono soundtrack is decent, and features a cool/goofy score consisting mainly of a dissonant, gurgling, whining synthesizer and Latin percussion, with the occasional soap opera organ cue thrown in.

Mondo is a great company, and they always make an effort to provide worthwhile extras. Here they include two featurettes, one an interesting interview with Solares' son Adolfo, who wrote the screenplay, and the other a brief documentary on the nunsploitation genre featuring the founder of the video label Redemption, Nigel Wingrove.

I recommend SATANICO PANDEMONIUM strongly if you're into nunsploitation, moderately if you're just generally a low budget/off beat horror buff . See you in hell.

– Garry Messick

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