SATANICO PANDEMONIUM (1975)

 

(a.k.a. LA SEXORCISTA; director/co-screenwriter: Gilberto Martínez Solares, based on Jose Barragán’s story. Uncredited co-screenwriter: Adolfo Martinez Solares.)

 

Review

This dreamlike, for-mature-audiences-only shocker is one of the best nunsploitation films I’ve seen. SATANICO takes a few minutes to set up the film’s simple storyline and its Mexican location before the action kicks in. After Sister Maria (played by Cecilia Pezet) sees a nude, virile man (Luzbel/Lucifer, played by Enrique Rocha) stroll out of a river, she sees him and evidence of his influence everywhere (half-eaten apples, an owl, a black cat) in the unlikeliest of places. She alternates between punishing herself with a whip and a belt of thorns and seeking sexual pleasure with others. Maria’s acts become more brazen and brutal.

There are brief-for-the-genre lesbianism scenes, and quite a few scenes where Maria sheds her bride-of-Christ attire. The blood is bright and vivid, though SATANICO’s showing of it is restrained.

At an hour and twenty-nine minutes, SATANICO runs at a steady, character-true pace (while Maria’s sacrilegious behavior ramps up), the visual/color-palate aspects are intriguing (credit cinematographer Jorge Stahl Jr. for this), and if the ending feels like a cheat, it’s a mild let-down (at least for this viewer), I’m guessing it was written as such because SATANICO was made in a Catholic-dominated country, where the filmmakers had to take into account the powers and opinions that be. Standout film for the nunsploitation genre, this─worth checking out.

Fans of Robert Rodriguez’s 1996 crime-horror flick, FROM DUSK TILL DAWN may recall Salma Hayek’s vampiric stripper character, Satanica Pandemonium─not an accident that she’s named as such.