Excellent, Without a doubt!!

After playing with our expectations, this turns out to be a very different sort of film.

Story: It's very simple but honestly that is fine.

The film never slows down or bores, plunging from one harrowing sequence to the next.

Innocent virginal teenager Maria (an appealing and convincing performance by the comely Susan Hemmingway) gets sent to a convent as penance after she's caught cavorting with a young boy. However, said convent turns out to be a front for a satanic cult.Director Jess Franco, working from a bold script by Erwin C. Dietrich, offers a flavorsome evocation of the period setting, astutely captures the oppressive atmosphere of the abbey, tackles the edgy blasphemous subject matter head on, makes terrific use of the gorgeously opulent locations, and handles the expected nudity and soft-core sex in a surprisingly tasteful and elegant manner. This film gains considerable dramatic impact from its powerful and provocative central message about the abuse of power and perversion of sacred religious principles. Moreover, the fine acting from the excellent cast further enhances this movie's overall sterling quality, with especially praiseworthy contributions from William Berger as the depraved Father Vincente, Ana Zanatti as the equally wicked Mother Alma, Jose Viana as the fearsome Grand Inquisitor, Herbert Fux as a memorably creepy Satan, and Patricia Da Silva as Maria's timid God-fearing mother. Walter Baumgartner's lush score and Peter Baumgartner's beautiful cinematography are likewise proficient and impressive. Definitely one of Franco's best films from the 1970's.

Father Vicente (William Berger) catches pretty 15-year-old Maria (Susan Hemingway) flirting with her boyfriend, and has her sent to a convent where he can keep a closer eye on her. No sooner than she is cloistered, Maria is subjected to abuse, ultimately being forced to take part in a Satanic orgy, Vicente and the nuns all being followers of the devil (who makes a special personal appearance to take Maria's virginity!).I admit it: sometimes—okay, quite a lot of the time—I'm just not in the mood to labour over a really in-depth and informative movie review, and am just happy to rattle off some old rubbish to get it out of the way. I imagine this is how director Jess Franco must have tackled a lot of his films… just get the bloody thing in the can and start the next one. Sod the quality!Not so, however, with Love Letters From A Portuguese Nun, which feels like the director actually tried to make something a little more stylish than his usual dross: the locations and scenery are beautiful, the cast are half decent (there's no Lina Romay, whose 'beauty' I simply cannot comprehend), and the cinematography is classier than usual (fewer rapid zooms and out of focus shots). Hell, even the title is fancy schmancy.Unfortunately, at the end of the day, behind this semblance of style, it's business as usual for Franco, his film ultimately being another predictable slice of sleaze, with the vaguest of plots to string together the obligatory scenes of lesbianism, masturbation, orgies and torture, all of which eventually gets very boring. As Franco films go, this is far from his worst, but there are far better nunsploitation films out there (School of the Holy Beast and Sister Emanuelle spring to mind).

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.

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.