Senteur As somebody who had not heard any of this before, it became a curious phenomenon to sit and watch a film and slowly have the realities begin to click into place.

Lollivan It's the kind of movie you'll want to see a second time with someone who hasn't seen it yet, to remember what it was like to watch it for the first time.

Lachlan Coulson This is a gorgeous movie made by a gorgeous spirit.

Raymond Sierra The film may be flawed, but its message is not.

callanvass I'm not overly familiar with Franco's work. I've only seen a couple of his movie. The story for this one is better than I expected with copious amounts of nudity and sex. I won't spoil everything, but this one takes the cake. I'm talking stuff like a cum-shot (Blink and you'll miss it) lesbianism, explicit crotch shots, hints of incest, grisly torture scenes, Satan worshiping in a church and lots more. Jess Franco is obviously trying very hard to be offensive and he managed to succeed with that a lot of the time as I couldn't believe my eyes at the dialog between one of the priests and a girl during this movie. I was also really impressed by how Franco managed to mirror the 1870's precisely. It was gorgeous to look at. My only true complaints about this movie are the crude dubbing and the talky pace at times. This movie is certainly the best Franco movie I've seen thus far. It's talky at times, but never truly boring. There is more than enough absurdity to keep you interested. 5.5/10

chaos-rampant Its spring and I find myself gravitating to films where girls explore themselves, I saw a few of them. Maladolescenza was self-serious and symbolic, lame about confrontation. The Czech film The Virgin and the Monster was childish but layered. Alucarda was delirious and fun. So I thought I would round up this batch with the requisite Jess Franco, with one of his most appreciated.Now my taste in European sleaze cinema runs to Rollin to Daughters of Darkness, which is a shorter step to the undressing of naked mind in Marienbad. In this one, as in Rollin, I appreciate the sensual simplicity, the transparent gaze of the camera.My god, though. It's sensual but utterly worthless.It has a hamfisted message against religion, I can get past that, it's a hamfisted religion. There is some noodling with what is in the tormented nun's head and what not, early on she confesses an erotic dream which informs a scene in reality. You can even roll on this the false fairytale ending, inspired by a letter she sends out. It could be a good film on layered dreams, but Franco simply won't let you indulge the pleasure. There's a solid bottom of contrived 'real' here, which only makes his visual wandering seem more and more ponderous. What irks is that instead of reveling in the flesh he undresses, all the time he has to insist he's depicting religious wrongs. Lame.

The_Void Love Letters of a Portuguese Nun is a surprisingly professionally made movie from the king of sleaze, Jess Franco. Usually with Franco, you can count on a very thin plot and loads of sex (usually involving lesbians), but this time it's the other way round. Of course, there's still lots of room for sex (no need to worry, Franco fans) but it's definitely a secondary element to the plot. This film fits into the corner of the horror genre known as 'nunsploitation'. This is my first ever taste of nunsploitation, so I cant comment on the niche on the whole; but if it turns out to be as interesting as it's title, it should be pretty good! This film follows Maria, a sixteen year old girl that is forced into a convent after the convent's leader manipulates her mother into thinking she's in league with the devil and destined for Hell. However, this isn't a Christian convent and rather than worshipping God, these guys are actually a band of Satanists! After being forced to perform sinful acts with various members of the convent (including the Dark Prince himself...), Maria tries to escape the convent.The message in this film is actually rather potent, and it exposes the hypocrisy of religion and, more specifically; the Christian church. The film manages to go even further than that too, with the idea of a sex scandal being pretty much timeless. Sex scandals are still a big part of our society's news stories, and I'm sure that they will continue to be; which gives this film an element of immortality where it's plot is concerned. The sex scenes are surprisingly brief, which is very surprising after watching the likes of Vampyros Lesbos and Bare Breasted Countess. The photography is smooth and nice to look at, leading me to believe that Jess Franco actually wanted to make a film, rather than just another of his usual quickies. Jess Franco made a lot of films over his career, a lot of which are forgettable rubbish; but this film hints that the man may have a lot more talent than his list of directorial credits suggests. Despite some silly sequences (such the Devil love making scene), this film is professionally handled and just well done on the whole. Maybe if Franco had put more effort into the quality of his films rather than the quantity, he would have a few masterpieces under his belt.

MARIO GAUCI The first I've seen of the films Jess Franco made for producer Erwin C. Dietrich and, frankly, one of only three or four I'm really interested in (the others being DORIANA GREY [1976], JACK THE RIPPER [1976] and SEXY SISTERS [1977]). Having viewed this immediately after THE DEMONS (1972), I'm thankful it has proven to be a whole lot better, thus living up to its unanimously positive reputation online ever since it was released on DVD; definitely one of Franco's best (currently ranking at No. 7 out of only 18 I've watched so far).From the very first moments (starting off with a much more fitting 'medieval' score than THE DEMONS' eclectic if messy soundtrack), the film conveys both its seriousness of intent (neither THE BLOODY JUDGE [1970] nor THE DEMONS could be taken as anything but fanciful peeks into this controversial yet intriguing time-frame) and its artistic bent (certainly among Franco's most gorgeous-looking films, evident even in the VHS copy I viewed). The film is very well directed for the most part: stylized but highly effective framing (notably the shot where William Berger is forcing himself onto Susan Hemingway) and positioning of actors (the orgy where Hemingway is again raped, now by Herbert Fux's devil incarnate, while all the time her head is resting on Ana Zanatti's shoulder, who seems to be getting her sexual kicks by proxy!). The nick-of-time ending is effectively handled as well, especially its fading out on the two villains' apprehension – leaving their eventual fate, as it were, to each and every member of the audience!The acting of the three principals is terrific:· Susan Hemingway manages both the character's inherent innocence as well as her determination to put a stop to all the evil at the Abbey (I quite liked the fact that when she finally escapes, we are not shown how she achieves this, and also the matter-of-fact yet rather moving way her 'love letters' are eventually picked up) [Brief parenthesis: I look forward to seeing more of her in Franco's SINFONIA EROTICA (1979), paired with the equally scrumptious Lina Romay who, incidentally, appeared in a remake of LOVE LETTERS OF A Portuguese NUN made by Jorge Grau in 1978!]· William Berger as the sickest priest ever to hit the screen (far more damaging than the befuddled monk played by Jack Palance in MARQUIS DE SADE'S JUSTINE [1968]), who immediately demonstrates he is adept at persuading virtually anyone to do his bidding (the calm way he haggles Hemingway's poor and impressionable mother out of her savings at the beginning of the film, for instance, but also the girl herself during a humiliating confession scene that just about manages not to topple over into unnecessary grossness and emerges, in fact, as one of the film's highlights)· Ana Zanatti, however, matches Berger with her proud (and evidently possessed) Mother Superior-cum-High Priestess, creating what is perhaps one of Franco's most fascinating female villainsWhat I couldn't quite figure out initially about LOVE LETTERS OF A Portuguese NUN is its apparently schizophrenic nature: while it takes the utmost care in establishing period atmosphere and the mood of specific scenes, and doing so with great subtlety (as in the almost subliminal but potentially repugnant shot where Hemingway's face is hit by a rush of semen), the film then goes overboard with its frequent depiction of sexual activity among the nuns and their unmitigated devotion to Satan (as if the agenda of this so-called Abbey hadn't been made blatant already!). That said, the scene where Zanatti painfully confirms her 'faith' (which reminded me of a similarly excruciating moment in the last of the Hammer horror films, Peter Sykes' contemporaneous TO THE DEVIL…A DAUGHTER [1976]) is well done – as are, in fact, the various tortures to which lovely Susan Hemingway is subjected for her defiance of the 'house' rules. [In any case, Francesco Cesari once again came to the rescue for me, putting the sex scenes in their proper context which is that, in their pursuit to 'demonize' sexuality, the Catholic Church has rendered the Devil a sexual object leading to a general perversion in sexuality – which 'disease' actually sprang from within the convents themselves! Apart from this, Francesco has rightly observed that, before we even get to see how truly evil they are, the characters of Father Vincent and Mother Alma are themselves depicted in the film as wretched human beings – indicating, in this way, that they are as much victims of this same culture as anyone else!] I wouldn't mind buying the film on DVD (in view of the proper Widescreen ratio and VIP's restoration efforts) though the price-tag of the Swiss DVD is set rather too highly for my tastes; I only hope, therefore, that Anchor Bay UK (a DVD is planned for a February 2004 release) can pull this one intact from under the BBFC's scrutiny… Much as Franco's THE BLOODY JUDGE was made in the wake of the classic WITCHFINDER GENERAL (1968), his THE DEMONS and LOVE LETTERS OF A Portuguese NUN emerged from the relative success and eventual cult-status of Ken Russell's original 'nunsploitation' epic THE DEVILS (1971); I wouldn't say that Franco necessarily did a better job of it but, thankfully, his efforts did not prove so hysterical as Russell's either! (Actually, watching these two films has reminded me that I've yet to pick up Walerian Borowczyk's similar BEHIND CONVENT WALLS (1977) on R2 DVD from Nouveaux Pictures.)P.S. The film's 'message' is still timely, especially since here in Malta a sex-scandal was recently unearthed involving priests' abusing of their young male charges(!); incidentally, the religious order involved is affiliated with the Secondary school which my brother and I attended between 1987 and 1992 – come to think of it, once we even spent a whole week-end at their convent!!