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Rating: Director: Stefan Oblowsky (Bruno Mattei)
Year: 1980
Country: Italy
The very fact that Bruno Mattei used such a bizarre alias as "Stefan Oblowsky" speaks volumes about this film!
The opening sequences already project the viewer into the sick and grotesque atmosphere of this satanic-themed horror-nunsploitation: Skulls, bones, and a frightened nun who, with a dim light torch, is walking through a corridor in what is a catacomb. "My God, I must be lost" she whispers, and with a crescendo of the obsessive musical background (by Goblin, by the way), she continues to anxiously call out "Sister Assunta....? Sister Assunta..?!!".
From here, the film is a succession of macabre discoveries, within this convent where evil reigns among the sisters and drives them to heinous murders and sacrifices. Father Inardo and Father Valerio are called in to investigate these strange occurrences.
The nonsensical dialogues and the mishmash of various scenes are memorable: possessions, satanism, various rituals, splatter effects, the devil in the form of red eyes that light up (clearly light bulbs) and speak with a clumsily disguised voice; moreover, nuns reduced to a vegetative state, others driven into hysteria. The absence of a real plot and the lack of logic dominate the film, continuing to provide us with fantastic nuggets from the nuns' words, such as: (During a nun's dissection by her sister) "The pubis, the clitoris, the uterus, the ovaries; true antechambers of hell!"
A cult film for B-Z series lovers
Trivia:
In truth, the film was almost entirely directed by Claudio Fragasso, as at the time he and Mattei shared duties: on the upper floor of the convent, the latter was shooting (with the same actors) "The True Story of the Nun of Monza" while the other was going at it downstairs with "The Other Hell". It is said that occasionally Fragasso would ascend from the catacombs to steal some footage from his friend!!
By saving on costs and time, two films, if we can call them that, were shot in one go.
The Goblins also aimed for savings and stole the soundtrack from Mario Landi's "Patrick Still Lives"!
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