Satanic Pandemonium

There's a bit of unintended notoriety connected with the title of this film. You have to see the 1996 Quentin Tarantino and Robert Rodriguez writer-director collaboration From Dusk Til Dawn, an un-P.C. film if ever there was one, to get it. The movie's characters have set up shop at a trucker's and biker's bar, the Titty Twister, to cool their heels. The M.C. announces a new entertainer for the stage, a woman named Santanico Pandemonium. The voluptuous actress Salma Hayek steps out draped with a huge snake and little else, and proceeds to rock her hips to the delight of every man who can see her. It's a stunning moment toward the middle of a not very striking flick.

Satanico Pandemonium isn't only exploitation; it belongs to a genre called "nunsploitation." The place is Spain and the time is most likely pre-1834. Sister Maria (Cecilia Pezet) is a devoted nun who finds herself visited by visions of Satan, or Luzbel. The devil appears as a man to Sister Maria, and using obvious Biblical symbolism, tends to carry a bitten-into apple. Sister Maria is startled and horrified by the series of temptations that happen to her via the film's faulty special effects. As another user has pointed out, this is an obsession scenario by an external devil.

One important observation should be stated. The actress playing Sister Maria is very beautiful with warm, bedroom eyes, and many of us (meaning men) wouldn't mind watching her getting robbed of her virtue - as well as tormented by particular sins. But what happens is with a little influence from Beelzebub, Sister Maria soon indulges in lesbianism, child seduction and heresy. The film has a church-like quality to the way it moves slowly and harps upon moments of less-than-dramatic value, and with its fantastic logic, Sister Maria turns into hell in a headdress. One scene in particular is actually quite disturbing, with Sister Maria covering her naked, bloody body with her uniform.

The flick isn't entirely baldfaced exploitation though, and has interesting questions about faith in its dialogue. That aside, the flick's appeal seems rather obvious. In life, most of us want what we cannot have, and the fantasy of despoiling such a person (i.e., a nun) can be very powerful. Satanico Pandemonium uses its subject matter effectively, and despite an unsatisfying story resolution, it packs quite a wallop.

Ah yes, trashy-looking movies revolving on wicked and sexually depraved nuns…you got to love 'em! "Nunsploitation" is the most absurd and pointless sub genre of horror cinema (closely followed by Nazi-exploitation and Dwarfsploitation) but also strangely fascinating and, if you've seen one, you develop an uncontrollable desire to see them all, even though the stories are hardly ever worth bothering for. This Mexican gem is a perfect example to state the theory! "Sátanico Pandemonium" has almost no plot at all; the acting performances are quite embarrassing and isn't even that bloody! This film is just pleasantly deranged, with an enjoyable tempo and pretty stylish set pieces. We're welcomed into a convent during the Inquisition-era where the beautiful sister Maria undergoes bizarre changes. Satan himself keeps on appearing to her and she starts doing very UN-catholic things, like mutilating herself and seducing young boys that are fishing. The more Satan controls her (simply by wandering around offering her an half-eaten apple…I suppose it's symbolism), the viler her acts get, resulting in the death of several innocent people. There are some incredibly tedious parts to struggle through, but overall this is elegant entertainment for trained exploitation fans. It's not a patch on other Nunsploitation-highlights, such as "The Devils", "Flavia – The Heretic" or "Alucarda" (also Mexican), but it has the right amount of naked female flesh, enchanting costumes and atmospheric music. Naughty nuns equal great fun!

I watched this on Mondo Macabro's DVD of it, and the picture quality is very good - nice and sharp and colorful. For some reason it is a little scratchy in the last few seconds (perhaps appropriately enough, since Old Scratch himself is appearing at that moment).

A young pretty nun is wandering through the countryside picking flowers. She sees a naked man who greets her, and she runs away. When talking to a local boy, the man reappears in clothing this time, and he tries to get her to take a bite of a shiny red apple. She runs away again, and the devil (as he clearly must be) takes a bite of the apple while he watches her retreat.

The devil shows up against outside the convent window when the nuns are eating. He disappears, then appears as a small red thing (light, jewel, apple?), then even that disappears. The nun shows herself to be kind to the black nuns, who are discriminated against, and to be gentle and healing with animals.

When another nun comes to her room to declare her admiration and love for her, she immediately collapses on the bed accepting the seduction. Satan finally got to her. Her behavior becomes more satanic, as she seduces or kills people. Her clothing is frequently removed. Satan proves himself to be pretty powerful, while God seems absent.

The ending might have been a concession to censors, I'm not sure. There are a lot of nice extras on the DVD, including a short overview of nunsploitation and an essay on the subject, among other things. I haven't seen many such movies myself, apart from some weird nun movies like Alucarda, Dead Waters, and Demonia - hardly typical Catholic nuns.

Even though I have ambiguous estimations about this film on the whole, I can only say for sure that "Satanico Pandemonium" is a must-see nunsploitation Mexican flick for anyone who can be pleased about these kinds of movies for their evident ridiculousness. This is one of those flicks that have too many flaws and no plot whatsoever but it's still impossible not to like them, for some imprecise cause. The acting is not exactly Academy Award material and it causes unintended laughter. The special effects in which we see the concept of Satan and temptation itself represented on a laughable guy naked, is by far one of the most hysterical things about this film, along with the outrageously shabby sound effects during these strange apparitions. The whole thing just looks too tacky and the look on the guy's face is simply priceless, so how can anyone not love it?. I know some people could take it as a reason to overthrow the director's gracious effort, but I myself, found it too silly not to like it. Without offering an actual share of real horror, "Satanico Pandemonium" manages to get the attention, even if it is by some means erroneously advertised. There are some noble allocations of gore here and there, but the film mostly focuses on the drama and eroticism. The first half an hour happens to be ineffective in a way and that would be the only reasons why I felt compelled to turn it off throughout the first minutes and leave it incomplete. It contains no dialogs, no action and for the most part only a nice display of beautiful Mexican landscapes, which is not exactly enough to make it endurable. However, it is only a matter of persistence to realize that after the big unnecessary moments of silence and boredom, the story starts to develop some of the most astonishing states of affairs, in which we see lesbian soft-core sex between two nuns, a nun taking advantage of a teenage boy and some enjoyable bloody murders inside the convent. Without anything else to add, I can only recommend "Satánico Pandemonium" to anyone who is in the mood for a decent nunsploitation drama, with some utterly random sexual scenes, a couple of nice murders to attach at least a small share of horror to the story, a badly placed background story of racism and of course...lots of sexy and sinful nuns.

One of the most faithful nuns in her convent, Sister Maria finds herself obsessed by the Devil. Obsessed, not possessed, because Satan is an external force in this film. A strapping and vampiric lad, the Devil brings out Sister Maria's inner desires for both sex and blood. Plagued also by her devotion to God, she tries to fight these forbidden desires and lusts with prayer and penitence only to have them come back ten fold. Sister Maria is suddenly caught between Satanic submission or death.

Satanico Pandemonium is a good nunsploitation effort in the vein of, the more celebrated, Juan Lopez Moctezuma'a Alucarda. It has sex, nudity, lesbianism, child seduction, self mutilation, blood, and death(not necessarily in that order, of course). The ending is clever and surprising following a bloody and ravenous climax. If you're a fan of nunsploitation and offbeat cinema, do yourself a favor and check out Satanico Pandemonium. You won't regret it.