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Released by: Severin Films
Released on: April 11th, 2017.
Director: Bruno Mattei
Cast: Franca Stoppi, Carlo De Mejo, Francesca Carmeno, Susan Forget, Paola Montenero
Year: 1981
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The Movie:
Directed by Bruno Mattei as 'Stefan Oblowsky' with a whole lot of behind the camera work handled by an uncredited Claudio Fragasso, The Other Hell begins when two nuns, Sister Christina and Sister Assunta (Paola Montenero), are murdered in the strange catacombs underneath their convent home. Understandably perplexed and concerned about the killings Mother Vincenza (Franco Stoppi) calls in for the assistance of a priest named Inardo (Andrea Aureli) to help solve the crimes.
Shortly after his arrival, Inardo become convinced that something truly evil is afoot. He sets out to exorcise the convent but loses the battle with whatever it is he goes up against, his head burnt to a crisp and left to be discovered in the chapel. With things having taken a serious turn for the worse, the powers that be bring in Father Valerio (Carlo de Mejo), a priestly detective with a great beard, to strike up an investigation of his own. As Vincenza tries to convince the good father that evil forces truly are to blame for all of this, Valerio's sleuthing uncovers the convents unholy past and he starts to wonder if all of this doesn't tie in to the death of the previous Mother Superior.
“The genitals are the door to evil! The vagina, the uterus, the womb… the labyrinth that leads to Hell… the Devil's tools!â€
Alternately known as Guardian Of Hell, this eighty-eight minute nunsploitation picture somehow manages to suffer from pacing problems while simultaneously prove quite captivating. It's tough to put your finger on what makes this movie so watchable. In many ways it is very slow (Fragasso points this out more than once on his commentary track) but there's a lot of frankly bizarre atmosphere here to keep us engaged. The characters aren't all that well written and the acting isn't all that good, but it's very watchable and at times, genuinely interesting. Franco Stoppi steals a few scenes here. Probably best known to Eurocult junkies for her work on Beyond The Darkness and Women's Prison Massacre (she also appears in The True Story Of The Nun Of Monza, which Mattei was making at the same time he was making this picture!), her stern facial features make her a great casting choice. Carlo De Mejo, who popped up in Fulci classics The House By The Cemetery and The City Of The Living Dead and who also appeared in Women's Prison Massacre, is pretty fun as or apostolic gumshoe.
Part of the reason that the film is so fascinating is its screwy take on morality, skewed through the obviously very Catholic characters in the film. Their rigid belief in abstinence and stern morality would, from Mattei's point of view at least, be the cause of all of this insanity - repression leads to disaster it would seem. On top of this, we get some utterly strange imagery thanks to a lot of primary colored lighting effects and weird set design - is there a mad science lab in the basement or… what is this? People are running around coughing up blood, dogs are killing people, and the score is made up recycled Goblin bits, most notably from Beyond The Darkness.
Although unlike most nunsploitation pictures this one is devoid of any really sexualized nudity, it still has its fair share of alluringly sleazy moments. Some of the vitriolic dialogue in the last half of the film is more than a little unseemly and then there are the film's murder set pieces, increasingly colorful and strange. Some of the cinematography here is genuinely cool, with much of the film having been shot in an actual former convent. It all leads up to a wonderfully odd finale where Mattei pulls from De Palma's adaptation of Stephen King's Carrie and a few other influences to create a film unafraid to borrow while still carving out its own weird niche.
Video/Audio/Extras:
Severin presents The Other Hell on Blu-ray in an AVC encoded 1080p high definition transfer framed at 1.66.1 widescreen taken from a 35mm blow up of the 16mm negative (which is apparently in pretty dire shape, which is why it wasn't used). Minor print damage shows up throughout and film grain is heavier than average but there's pretty decent detail here and color reproduction is quite good. Some minor compression artifacts show up in a few darker scenes but these aren't a constant problem. There aren't any issues with noise reduction or obvious edge enhancement while skin tones and black levels look good. Shadow detail isn't always the best but if you've seen this one before you'll definitely notice the upgrade in video quality when compared to the old Media Blasters DVD release.
LPCM 2.0 Mono tracks are provided in English, French and Italian with subtitles available in English only - these seem to match up to the English track. Quality is fine here, there are no problems with balance or any serious hiss or distortion. Some scenes sound a bit flat now and then but otherwise, no problems. Hearing the Goblin score in lossless is kind of great.
Extras start off with an audio commentary with co-director/co-writer Claudio Fragasso moderated by Federico Caddeo of Freak-O-Rama Productions. This is a pretty interesting track that has Fragasso giving us a solid history lesson of the film that he describes as 'Carrie in a convent.' He talks about what he shot versus what Mattei was responsible for, working with the cast and crew, specific memories of some of the actresses involved in the shoot, the use of music in the film, the actual locations used in the picture and how and why this movie was shot back to back with Mattie's The True Story Of The Nun Of Monza. The commentary is in Italian with English subtitles.
There are two featurettes here as well, the first of which is an eleven minute archival interview with the late Franca Stoppi entitled Sister Franca. She talks about her role on this project as well as her more infamous role in D'Amato's Beyond The Darkness. She also addresses animal violence in films, working on stage productions while moonlighting in the film industry and more. The second featurette is To Hell And Back and it's an archival interview with Bruno Mattei and actor Carlo De Mejo that runs just over eleven minutes. This is made up of edited sections from the separate interviews that appeared on the aforementioned Media Blasters DVD. Here Mattie talks about working with Fragasso on the movie, how the Goblin score wound up in the picture, the involvement of the producers in the picture and more, while De Mejo talk about how he got along with some of his co-stars, the truth behind the cutting off of a chicken's head in the picture and a few other odd details about his involvement in the film.
Rounding out the extras on the disc is a theatrical trailer for the film, menus and chapter selection. Severin has also provided some cool reversible cover art for this release.
The Final Word:
The Other Hell is fairly atypical for a nunsploitation picture - but that's what makes it interesting. It's got more to do with supernatural horror tropes than it does with sisters of the cloth and their Sapphic liaisons but it's fairly stylish and just plain bizarre enough to work, even when it shouldn't. Severin's worldwide Blu-ray debut for the feature is a good one, presenting the film in a solid transfer, with decent audio and a pretty nice selection of extras.
