Except for a couple of brilliant scenes, weirdophiles won’t find much here, but it’s still a delight for its vintage grindhouse charm. Even though Satanico Pandemonium is well-crafted in visual appeal and pacing, it’s a fast and sloppy budget production that will leave many a plot hole uncorked if you think about it too hard. It goes out of its way to be shocking in places, but as a grindhouse movie filmed in Mexico in the 1970s, the shocks come mostly from viewing it across a cultural divide over the border and a few decades’ time.
#Pandemonium movie 1982 review how to#
The one thing you learn from this movie is how to take off a nun outfit and put it back on and take it off again. It is first of all a nunsploitation flick, with plenty of boob-fondling to make sure you don’t forget it. Without spoiling it, let’s just say, “prepare to be jolted.” Especially in a cheap way.Įven the jolts don’t qualify Satanico Pandemonium as a weird movie. Maria’s problems become everybody’s problems. We can be certain of two things: 1) the experience is corrupting Maria at a rapid pace, and 2) life at this convent is steadily going to Hell in a handbasket with every passing minute. We see almost the entire story from her point of view, which tends to be interrupted by visions, dreams, freak-outs, etc. The film leaves us wondering how much of all this is real, whether it’s an actual Satanic manifestation, a symbolic telling of the real-life sexual tension between ordinary mortals, or something going on entirely in Maria’s head. Luzbel is trying to seduce Maria into sin through temptations of the flesh, and Maria’s gotta fight hard to stay in the Jesus club. See, that’s the problem with the Devil, he can’t just pick one name and stick to it. But she has a problem of her own: a sinister man appears to her out of nowhere, symbolic offering of an apple in hand, insistently introducing himself as Luzbel/Lucifer/Mephisto. Between a sick cow one minute or a sister coming to her to confess carnal desires for another woman the next, it’s all a gal can do to get in some topless self-flagellation kneeling at her prayer bench in her room. Seemingly everybody comes to her with their problems. Sister Maria is a devout nun in a Mexican convent who is not only a spiritual leader second to Mother Superior, but the convent’s resident veterinarian and doctor, too.
I’m so busy enjoying the eye candy in this film that it’s a shame to pay attention to the plot. If any face can melt the knickers off a nun, it’s Rocha’s.
With her syrupy brown eyes and pouty face, Cecilia Pezet (Sister Maria) is very nearly the Winona Rider of her day, while Enrique Rocha (Luzbel) is just the right roguish kind of handsome rake for his role. The casting even has a visible plan, even if the acting lets it down. The filming locations, several convents around Mexico including World Heritage site Dominico de la Natividad in Tepoztlán, are also a treat. Next, I have to say that this is an unexpectedly pretty movie! Filming in Eastmancolor brings out the baby blue nun outfits, the green foliage of the countryside of Mexico, and of course the cherry-red blood that will be spilled. For one more point in this movie’s favor, it came out two years after The Exorcist and did NOT try to copy it! Resisting the Devil’s temptations is peanuts compared to that kind of restraint. Add to that one more credential: director Solares is said to have been inspired by Ken Russell‘s The Devils (1971), so at least he had some taste. Once you see it, you know why Quentin Tarantino named Salma Hayek‘s one-scene character in From Dusk Till Dawn (1996) after this movie.
COMMENTS: Boy, where to start? Satanico Pandemonium is a Mexican mid-70s nunsploitation flick which exemplifies the very heart of grindhouse cinema. PLOT: Sister Maria is a nun at a convent whose tranquil life of devotion is disrupted by a seductive male stalker who claims to be Lucifer. 366 Weird Movies may earn commissions from purchases made through product links.įEATURING: Cecilia Pezet, Enrique Rocha, Delia Magaña
0 kommentar(er)
