Maleficarum

These reviews are obviously being written by cast & crew, friends & family because this movie is absolute trash! Now I'm a fan of torture films as much as the next guy but there's really nothing going on here. It's just girls being whipped to death for practically 2 hours. I get it, this is a fetish for some guys, but to me it's a bit boring. Especially as badly as this story is told. And the talking head segments like it's a reality show is completely perplexing with a time period drama. Comes off quite comical actually. Which seems to be the exact opposite of what this film is going for. Yea this movie is extreme. But its also extremely boring and terribly acted. The only reason to watch this is the nudity, which is plentiful. But so much so it comes off boring as well. Nothing about this flows well, just boring badly scene after another. Don't waste your time with this!

This is arguably one of the best "Inquisition movies" ever made. Not because it can directly compete with bigger budget productions, but, on the contrary, despite being a low-budget film, it nicely exploits the movie-making art at its best to really convey the idea of what the Inquisition was. We know that most of these movies, more often than not, were made mostly as an excuse to show naked beautiful ladies under distress. More like a kind of BDSM movie sub-genre. As such, they don't really delve too much into the specifics of *why* such things happened, and often times, *how* these inquisitions were actually conducted. Lame plots are often the norm. What I found most remarkable about this movie is that it portrays the violence within a well-documented and researched historical context, thus in a way justifying the torture scenes. The audience has a unique opportunity to grasp the unimaginable degree of power, ignorance, and savagery from the ever-present Church, under which the people in those times spent their lives.

Amy's acting is really remarkable. I got really moved by the scenes where Mariana suffers for seeing what her love Francisca is enduring. These seem to be actual tears, and I felt it in my throat, no kidding. When they touch their hands, when Francisca lovingly strokes a broken Mariana on her lap, I really felt shaken by the love and suffering there. Amy also conveys the sense of actual pain under torture, which becomes unsettling after a while. I wish Mila could deliver the same degree of drama, but she falls a bit short on the task, especially when delivering a line. I also found Amy's accent a bit out of place, given the perfect (to me, a Portuguese speaker..) accent of the other actors. Of course, it is too much to ask that she should, besides all that she has done already, still speak perfectly non-accented Spanish, being born and raised in the US. Please, Amy and Mila, don't take this badly, I can only imagine what it is to perform that kind of role for an audience. Or just for the film crew. You both are brave beautiful actresses and deserve praise.

Also worth mentioning is Roberto Lopez's portrayal of the inquisitor. I was impressed by his delivery, especially in the initial scenes, of an apparently well-mannered, soft-spoken, and well-intended priest, which was as much interested in the heiress' wealth as in actually "saving" the accused. Along the interrogations, he seems dispassionate and not impressed by the suffering he is imposing on the victims. It dawned on me that it probably was the case indeed, for those church men, as everybody else in those times, lived in a magical world with very, very different values and world views than we live in today. We just cannot grasp, much less judge, what went inside their minds. Life and death were ranked very differently in those days than they are today for us. Inquisition movies usually portray the interrogators as plain evil creatures, but, after watching this movie, it seems to me that, as usual, things might not be so clear-cut (please don't take these remarks as a justification for anything!). Roberto's performance was probably much more on the mark than many.

Having seen the interviews and reviews, it really stand out to me some aspects of the production and direction: the care with the costume and prop design and making (Amy's work!), the quasi-documentary style that lends action to a plot line that would be otherwise too dry, the editing that makes up for the lack of camera movement. No doubt due to the cramped space in the dungeon, and lack of expensive camera gear such as dolly and crane for exterior scenes..

I was delighted to find that this is a Bolivian production. Being born and raised in South America myself, I know well how difficult it is to work under very limited budgets and oftentimes an uncooperative environment. I can only praise the film's entire crew for achieving such good quality in this movie.

Set in the 16th century, a young woman inherits a fortune after her parents die. In order to get their hands on her wealth, the Catholic Church imprison her and her wealthy female friend, accusing them of being witches. They refuse to confess.

Quite poor. Though it is has all the trappings of a B-grade exploitation movie, this movie had the potential to expose the horrors and hypocrisy of the Spanish Inquisition. However, it really doesn't go anywhere new.

Even the gratuitous stuff is badly done, with every scene drawn out to the point of tedium.

Some pretty laughable performances. A school play would contain better acting than many of what passed for it in this movie.

Poor and dull. Avoid.

This is a very remarkable film for its total restraint in depicting a story of extreme outrage. It brings associations directly to the Danish director Carl Th. Dreyer and his films, especially "The Day of Wrath" 1943, but maybe more specifically to "The Passion of Jeanne d'Arc", since this is also a close-up of the martyrdom of woman, in this instance even doubly so, since there are two. The story in itself is the ghastliest possible, the two young ladies prosecuted by the inquisition for forbidden love being tortured one by one while the other one is forced to look on in increasingly accelerating cruelty to extract a forced confession of witchery. When the confession finally is accomplished, they are subjected to no less severe punishment none the less in a total judicial murder, just because of the greed of the church to obtain the property of the one young ladý who from her parents has inherited the greatest fortune in Peru - this is somewhere around 1700. The film is accompanied all through by the most intimately pleasing chamber music, mainly guitar, which enhances the grotesqueness of the terror proceedings even more.

The director Jac Avila from Bolivia is also the writer and the producer of the film, and it is definitely a masterpiece, with the vital contribution of Amy Hesketh as the main victim - her acting is quite comparable with Maria Falconetti's in "The Passion of Jeanne d'Arc". Still, the torture scenes, that never cease to get worse and seem more endless each time, must make this film unbearable to many, and it's impossible for anyone, I think, not to look away more often than not. A masterpiece of a genius making a deep and lasting impression - an unforgettable film, that however you would not like to see again. The impression is too strong not to leave you almost as branded as the victims.

A wealthy orphan (an adult, but whose parents have died and is as yet, unmarried - so, in that period, unprotected) befriends another woman who has lost her husband and is now a homeless widow. Their relationship has lesbian elements - which of course are "beyond the pale" in the era; additionally, the friend is "horror of horrors" - a Lutheran - in other words - a heretic! And the orphan is wealthy... The Inquisition steps in soon enough and when the two women prove 'uncooperative'- this film pulls no punches. The film shows both how the two women are slowly but surely broken in graphic detail and, showing interviews the inquisitors have with various witnesses, also how the common beliefs of the time justified it. The torture is shown historically accurately being done to the women's totally nude bodies...