Color, 1978, 77m.
Directed by Juan López Moctezuma
Starring Tina Romero, Claudio Brook
Mondo Macabro (DVD) (US R0 NTSC, UK R0 PAL)

A long way from those K. Gordon Murray Mexican horrors for the kiddies, Alucarda is one of the more striking and shocking south of the border gothic fests from the golden age of cinematic sleaze. Replete with nuns, devil worship, blood baths, and sadistic religious fanaticism, this is one drive-in jewel ripe for rediscovery.

In the 1800s, young orphan Justine (Susana Kamini) arrives at a repressive convent where Alucarda (Tina Romero) has spent her life since infancy. They become fast friends and, while frolicking in the woods, encounter a sinister gypsy (Claudio Brook) who warns them about a nearby cemetery, the devil's stomping ground. After unleashing a malevolent power inside one of the tombs, Alucarda proves to be the most susceptible upon returning to the convent. The gypsy then magically reappears and initiates the girls into the ways of the horned one, courtesy of a blood rite and a sylvan orgy. Potentially bisexual Sister Angelica (Tina French) realizes something's amiss and decides to stage an exorcism, though the ceremony of tying the girls naked to crosses proves to have disastrous results. The local physician, Dr. Oszek (also Brook), finds himself unable to explain away the bizarre deeds occurring within the convent walls, which escalate when Justine seems to be killed... or does she?

Though shot on a low budget in obviously limited sets, Alucarda is a thematically fascinating response to the increasingly depraved Italian nun antics being churned out around the same time. Even during its most outlandish moments, Moctezuma rarely seems to be pandered to the audience's baser instincts; instead his use of bare flesh and blood feels poetic and organically linked to the story, which never loses focus on the emotions and motivations of the characters. The story construction also makes effective use of Hitchcockian doubling motifs, including casting both Romero and Brook in dual roles. The last third of the film contains a number of intriguing narrative reversals which further this technique, and the finale presents a more intricate view of the relationship between good and evil than one normally expects in a nunsploitation effort. Of course, the standout scene here - a character rising nude from a blood-filled coffin and going on a murderous rampage - is quite difficult to forget, but Moctezuma imbues even the quieter scenes with a palpable sense of unease and menace. The woodland orgy is a particularly effective demonstration of his command of the cinematic medium, evoking Terence Fisher's The Devil Rides Out with a few erotically charged twists of its own.

One of the earliest UK releases from Mondo Macabro, Alucarda also serves as the first American title in the line as well. Image quality is excellent for the most part, with the upgraded US disc gaining the edge as it was transferred directly from the original negative and sports only minor scratches and damage. Colors are wonderfully saturated, and while the detail is sometimes almost too sharp (exposing some of the more cost-cutting measures in the otherwise impressive production design, and also exposing some of the inferior stock used for a handful of shots), there's little quibbling to be done with this stellar presentation. The actors performed in English, resulting in an audio track which synchs up with their lip movements even though several voices appear to be looped later. Brook's voice is definitely his own, and it's interesting to see this veteran actor (who also appeared in Moctezuma's fascinating Mansion of Madness and, much later, the 007 actioner Licence to Kill) tackling two very different personae. The stereo audio track limits most of the ambient spearation effects to the low key electronic score, which sounds like a more sparse cousin to Tangerine Dream's soundtracks of the period. For some reason a persistent, bass-filled hum is barely audible throughout the English track; those with a sensitive sound system can minimize this background droning by cranking up the treble. A dubbed Spanish audio track is also included. The US disc contains the lurid theatrical trailer under the original title (though tapes have circulated under such other names as Innocents from Hell, Sisters of Satan, and Mark of the Devil 3), as well as a 15-minute featurette on Moctezuma including tantalizing snippets from his other, earlier work and several useful bits of biographical information, including his relationship with peer Alejandro Jodorowsky. The UK disc instead contains a 22-minute episode on Mexican horror from the excellent Mondo Macabro television series; perhaps for legal clearance reasons this couldn't be ported over directly to the American verison. The package is rounded out with a Moctezuma filmography and text interview as well as a 7-minute video interview with director Guillermo del Toro (The Devil's Backbone), who speaks appreciably of the film and its creator with a number of humorous interjections. He also discusses his working relationship with the late Brook, who appeared in del Toro's Cronos. The final extra is a stills gallery, rounding out an admirable tribute to one of the more outlandish entries in Mexi-horror.