Satánico pandemonium
(1975) 87 Min.
Rated: NR (Nudity, sex, slight gore)
Country: Mexico
Director: Gilberto Martínez Solares
Starring: Enrique Rocha, Cecilia Pezet, Delia Magaña
Links: IMDB | Wikipedia
Rating: ★★★★☆
Sister María sees a naked man one day and goes on a downward spiral of sex and murder.
Synopsis:
Sister Maria (Pezet) is wandering a forest while picking flowers. She comes near a pond and sees a fully naked man (Rocha) who simply greets her. Maria runs away in fright. When she looks back, he is gone. She goes and prays at an outdoor shrine.
A young shepherd named Marcello shows Maria a newly born sheep. As she gives the sheep water she sees the naked man from before, but this time he is clothed as a shepherd and offers her an apple. She runs away in fear.
Maria is back at the mission. While dinner is being served she sees the man appear and disappear again. No one else seems to be able to see him, though.
Two black sisters retire to their straw beds in some dark corner of the abbey. Sister Maria visits them and one of the sisters, Sister Caridad, is crying. She tells Maria that she wants to die. That she’s always felt this way because of her dark skin color and the mistreatment she’s received in her life. Maria offers some words of comfort like “we don’t own our lives, they belong to the Lord now” and wipes away the tears.
Sister Maria goes to her room to pray but has visions of the naked man which trouble her. She then strips off the top portion of her dress, ties a thorny rope around her waist and whips her back as punishment. This is interrupted when the black nuns go to her room and tell her that Sister Sofia’s cow is sick.
Sister Maria knows how to fix it and with herbal remedies the cow will be fine soon. Maria is hard at work brushing the cow, and soon she falls asleep in the hay. The man appears again. He’s eating an apple and throws it towards her. When Maria wakes up she finds the apple still on the ground.
Back in her room, Sister Maria undoes her top and carefully takes the spiked rope off her waist. Meanwhile, hidden in the shadows, another sister waits. She approaches Maria and confesses that she loves Maria. The nun forcibly kisses Maria and pushes her onto the bed. She kisses Maria’s face neck and chest. Soon she moves down further and someone else rises to kiss Maria’s face. It’s the man and he says his name is Luzbel A.k.a. Lucifer. He tells her that if she needs him, all she has to do is just think of him because he’s always with her.
The next day, Maria bows to pay homage to a painting of a saint and instead sees a demon face in a painting.
She walks back out where the sheep are and sees Marcello by the river. She dips her feet into the water and raises her habit to expose her legs more. She tries to seduce Marcello and kisses him, but he gets up and runs away.
While dining she randomly sees a snake in her cup which gets the attention of the Mother Superior.
In her own room she stews in torment and is about to stab herself with scissors when another nun, Sister Clemencia, appears. Clemencia complains of a mark on her shoulder and shows Maria the mark. Maria tells her it’s the mark of the Devil and starts to molest Clemencia. She starts to kiss Sister Clemencia for while until after a bit Sister Clemencia pushes Maria off her.
As Sister Clemencia tries to leave the room, Maria gets a knife and stabs her in the back. Somehow Clemencia manages to run away.
Moments later, the Mother Superior knocks on Maria’s door. They talk for a bit and Maria tells her that Clemencia is very ill. Mentally ill.
Sister Caridad is crying again and contemplating suicide. She forms a noose out of some rope and is standing on a table in the kitchen. Sister Maria sees her as she places the noose around her neck and pushes her off the table, killing her.
Sister Maria then wanders off to a nearby shack. It’s Marcello’s home and his grandmother greets Maria at the door holding a black cat. Maria asks to see Maria who she says was ill, the old woman says Marcello isn’t ill, but sleeping. Maria enters the home. She sees Marcello sleeping and then notices the old woman has fallen asleep too.
She disrobes and gets into bed with Marcello and attempts to forcefully kiss him, but he pushes her off and bites her hand. She grabs a nearby knife and stabs him repeatedly. When she comes out of her murder frenzy she sees that the person on the bed dead is the old woman. Maria then drops a lighted candle in some straw and the house bursts into flames. She escapes, but she can hear the yowling of the cat inside the home as it’s probably kitty toast by now.
She runs home and sees a black cat by the door. This startles her and she goes to her room. She notices that her devotional Brown Scapular is gone. It had been pulled off by Marcello previously.
Two sisters ask if Maria would like to go with them to the funeral of Marcello and his grandmother. Maria feigns surprise. She then secretly goes to see the two corpses and tries to pry Marcello’s hand open to get the scapular back. As she’s doing this, the Mother Superior sees her.
The Mother Superior follows Maria to her room and confronts her. Maria starts to talk about how she’s now Hell and Satan is within her. She wants people to follow her so she can bring them to Hell, etc. Mother Superior slaps Maria. Maria suddenly has a rope appear in her hands and while the Mother Superior’s back is turned Maria strangles her. Maria then covers the body in a bed sheet and drags it out. She sticks it in one of the cellar crypts.
The funeral happens and Maria helps out, but she randomly freaks out and runs away, falling into a mud puddle. She goes to pray in the mountains. It’s there that Luzbel appears again. He tells her that she can become Mother Superior if she accepts him. Maria is at first angry at Luzbel, but he tells her that the other nuns are coming for her to torture her. She screams at the devil to go away and he disappears.
Maria has a few visions of torture being done to her and instantly calls on Luzbel to accept his offer.
The nuns arrive at the cave in the mountain, but they’re carrying flowers instead of torches. They ask for Maria to become the new Mother Superior as she is very virtuous. She accepts and they all return to the church.
Maria sees a black cat as she enters the building. She then sees that all the nuns are dancing and some of them are naked. It’s just a party now. Luzbel shows up and tells Maria he kept his promise. He shows her the towns people that worships her but it’s a flock of sheep.
Suddenly the nuns each take a turn in stabbing Maria and she wanders off, bloody and in agony. She makes her way to her room and lies on her bed to die.
When she dies we see her body is no longer bloody and she looks at peace. Her room is padlocked. Sister Caridad is not dead! She checks on Maria through the window and announces to the other nuns that Maria has gone to Heaven now. The Mother Superior shows up and plans for the funeral. Maria had suffered seven days in isolation to save herself from a plague but she is now dead.
In the next scene we see Marcello and his grandmother pass by the church with their sheep. Finally the man who was Luzbel walks by dressed as a shepherd and eats an apple. The film ends.
Review:
Wow! A nunsploitation film from Mexico! This film has a somewhat cult status and I can completely understand why. It’s not exactly scary at all, but it’s certainly amusing and mesmerizing in some ways. The pacing is kind of slow and there’s certainly a good deal of padding with scans of pretty scenery and shots that last for too long, but this film has it’s own charm too.
This film has a little something for most b-movie fans. It’s got hammy acting, excessive nudity, nuns aplenty, lesbian themes, kitschy gore. The dialogue is a bit sparse, but the film is quite nicely shot. The music is pretty nice too.
Don’t go into this film expecting scares or even to see a large budget film. This is a pretty low budget romp that is fun for what it is.
The gore in this film is pretty light. Think watery food color for blood. And there’s an excessive amount of nudity. Maria probably spends about a third of the film topless at least. There’s a few instances of forced kissing and attempted rape, but it’s pretty tame by today’s standards. If this kind of thing doesn’t bother you, then this film is probably for you.