![]() In another part of town, a male cheerleader named Glenn Dandy (Victim #2) says goodbye to his eccentric family before leaving for camp. As she hangs suspended, Candy tells her that she just wants to be normal and marches away to catch the bus. As they quarrel, red beams of light suddenly streak from Candy's eyes and levitate her mother into the air. Both warn her against reopening the camp as they believe it to be cursed with death, but Bambi is undeterred.Īt a bus station, a young woman named Candy (labeled Victim #1) prepares to board a bus to the cheerleading camp but her religious fanatic mother tries to dissuade her. After arriving on campus, she meets Pepe the maintenance man and his mother Salt. In 1982, the camp reopens with Bambi as the instructor. As a result, the college's summer cheerleading camp is closed down. The bizarre murder makes headlines, as does a subsequent murder involving exploding pompons. As a group of cheerleaders are cleaning up the field after the game, all five are skewered with a javelin thrown by an unknown assailant. Afterwards, a shunned cheerleader named Bambi is seen fawning over Grange's locker before the on-field celebration pours into the locker room. The extras are rounded out with an interview with the film's writer, a short feature on Nunsploitation films, and a full length commentary featuring Samm Deighan and Kat Ellinger.In the fictional town of It Had To Be, Indiana, fullback Blue Grange scores the winning touchdown for It Had To Be University in the 1963 National Championship game. Mondo Macabro's Blu-ray release has two different HD transfers to choose from, and I appreciate them going above and beyond to provide their viewers with these kinds of choices. ![]() The pacing of the film, particularly in the second act drags quite a bit, but the climax makes up for it, and it channels a bit of the lunacy from Ken Russell's The Devils (1971), albeit on a much smaller scale. Many films have explored the idea of Satan/Lucifer representing forbidden desires, and this one in particular leans heavily into that metaphor, even being so blunt as to have Lucifer offering María and apple to eat, a reference to the snake in the Garden of Eden tempting Eve with the fruit from the Tree of Knowledge. ![]() The more disturbing aspects come from María trying to seduce a young teenage boy, an unfortunate recipient of her newly realized sexual lust. Although Satanico Pandemonium is more of a low-key film, there are some gruesome sequences and it dips its toe into a few torture scenes though they are brief. ![]() The musical score is excellent with trippy ominous synth music mixed with more traditional style compositions. The set-pieces in the latter half of the film are beautifully filmed with lots of bright colors and outdoor vistas to contrast with the drab interior of the convent. There is a thin line between religious ecstasy and sexual ecstasy, which is depicted during a scene where María participates in a round of self-flagellation-if one only listened to the audio it would be hard to discern if she was whipping herself or masturbating. The pacing of the film is languid and María's decent into debauchery is gradual and sinister. María runs away frightened to death, but over the course of the film she is haunted by visions of this man (who eventually calls himself Lucifer) and she feels compelled to act out in disturbing and blasphemous ways. She is approached in the forest by a naked middle-aged man (Enrique Rocha) who is dripping wet, and who also exudes an intense and malevolent sexual energy. Sister María (Cecilia Pezet) is a mild-mannered and pious nun living out her days in a convent. Satanico Pandemonium (1975) is quite an elegant Mexican entry in the so-called Nunsploitation genre, and while it is full of titillation and nudity (and a fair bit of gore) it also takes a symbolic and dream-like approach in its narrative. But if I loved you for yourself, then I am your daughter. ![]() If I loved you only in promise of Heaven, then exclude me from it. "Lord, if I worshipped you because I feared Hell, then let me burn in Hell. ![]()
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