Alucarda (DVD)

Juan Lopez Moctezuma's meager cinematic oeuvres (he only directed five movies) has been compared to his contemporary, and sometime collaborator / adversary Alejandro Jodorowsky (Fando y Lis, El Topo, Santa Sangre).

Aside from Alucarda (1978), I have also seen Moctezuma's The Mansion of Madness (1973) — and have seen the numerous glowing reviews. I'm going to play the devil's advocate here, and say "meh" on both movies. Give me Jodorowsky at his most excruciating and self-indulgent (probably 1968's black and white exploration of a sadomasochistic love affair, Fando y Lis) over any Moctezuma, any day!

Alucarda is basically a suspense-free lesbian fever-dream (think: Jean Rollin's Living Dead Girl… kinda… only not nearly as polished and pretty). It follows the evil exploits of two teenaged female orphans being raised in a nunnery: Wild-eyed Alucarda (Tina Romero) and genteel Justine (Susana Kamini), after they encounter a hunchbacked gypsy (Claudio Brook) while out playing in the woods. The dirty old man and his wicked wife introduce the girls to the pleasures of devil worship, who then form a blood pact and become absolutely inseparable.

They take their new Satanic standards to the nunnery, and let's just say things don't go down too well (but some people do go down — messy, undulating orgiastic scenarios, complete with jungles of 70s-style pubic pelts, unkempt silver-filled teeth, and unedited grabbing ensues).

So, that's basically it.

Some reviewers have favorably compared Alucarda to Ken Russell's The Devils (1971), but aside from the basic plot similarities, there's no resemblance. The caliber of acting, the cinematography, and the emotional impact of Russell's obsessed, possessed nuns is seven heavens beyond Moctezuma's grubby, groping girls. (However, if you prefer a naturalistic approach to filmmaking to a heightened, artistic one, then I concede you will more than likely be choosing Alucarda over The Devils.)

As far as I'm concerned, what with the over-the-top, stilted acting, whacked-out goat men and its fiery finale, Alucarda is actually quite close to its other contemporaneous flick, the grave The Devil's Rain (1975). Then again, if you're just after boobs, blood and endless screaming, well… Alucarda can't be faulted in its unerring concentration on those three horror essentials.

There aren't many extras on the DVD, but personally I found the 20 minute documentary on the history of Mexican horror movies more worthwhile than the actual film (and it does help put it into perspective, even if the informative comments didn't actually help me like it any better).

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Reviewed by Staci Layne Wilson