The details are sharper, the film grain is finer, and the naturalistic colors pop beautifully. I’ve included a couple of comparison sliders in this review, though most of the images on this page are taken from the 4K negative scan, which I found superior, despite said flaw. Well, that and the literal Devil appears to be tempting the troubled nun, rather than natural desires.įurthermore, I have read that the “flawed” scan was indeed done in 4K and the print scan was done in 2K. The focus on the moral downfall of a single sinful sister, rather than the entire superfluity of a convent, as seen in the films that directly ripped off The Devils. Even as things begin turning explicit, it still feels like a version of Black Narcissus, just one made without the pretense of leaving the carnal longings to our imaginations. Had the title and poster art not promised an exploitation bonanza, audiences would be forgiven for thinking they were seeing a sobering portrait of one woman’s loss of faith and conviction in the face of overwhelming sexual urges. In fact, compared to other films within the genre, the real joy of Satánico Pandemonium is found in the uneasy balance it strikes between mainstream drama and grindhouse tomfoolery. Certainly, Solares and co-writers Jorge Barragán (also producer) and Adolfo Martínez Solares (the director’s son). In his ode to the nunsploitation genre, Anticristo: The Bible of Nasty Nun Sinema & Culture (FAB Press, 2000), author Steve Fentone also compares it to an even older source – Matthew Gregory Lewis’ 1796 gothic novel The Monk, which has inspired a number of films, plays, novels, and comic books. Gilberto Martínez Solares’ Satánico Pandemonium (aka: La Sexorcista, shot in 1973 and released in 1975) neatly represents this combination of smut and art, taking considerable cues from the colorful psychosexual melodrama of Black Narcissus. At least as long as they weren’t taking their cues from Nazisploitation movies and borrowing the Women in Prison (WIP) model, and trading sado-masochistic prison guards for sado-masochistic Padres or, in this case, the Devil himself. While they were obviously created to shock and incense exploitation-thirsty audiences, they tended to be elegant in their obscenity. These films gave the first couple decades of nunsploitation output something aesthetically impressive to aspire to. I assume this is because the genre has its basis in two genuinely great and celebrated motion pictures – Ken Russell’s aforementioned The Devils and, less obviously, Michael Powell & Emeric Pressburger’s Black Narcissus (1947, based on Rumer Godden’s 1939 novel). Given its subject matter, one might assume that nunsploitation would be the most salacious of the exploitation subgenres, aside from the ever-grotesque Nazisploitation, but, on average, there might actually be more artistically laudable entries than gutter trash quickies. In the film world, naughty nuns have existed since the silent era, when Benjamin Christensen’s occult pseudo-documentary Häxan (1922) portrayed a series of sinful sister activities, but it wasn’t until Ken Russell’s The Devils (1971, based on Aldous Huxley’s The Devils of Loudun and John Whiting’s stage play The Devils ) shocked censors and titillated international audiences that the concept of nunsploitation took off. Perverted, possessed, and/or evil nun stories have likely been around as long as Catholic women have donned the habit and pledged themselves to God.
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