Plot so thin, it passes unnoticed.

I like movies that are aware of what they are selling... without [any] greater aspirations than to make people laugh and that's it.

This is a coming of age storyline that you've seen in one form or another for decades. It takes a truly unique voice to make yet another one worth watching.

By the time the dramatic fireworks start popping off, each one feels earned.

Get ready for a movie completely overflowing with blasphemy shot in the Convento di Santa Priscilla in Rome (once owned by FIAT but now owned by the Secret Service). Then again, the print that Severin used for the blu-ray was found behind a false wall in a Bologna nunnery! I sum up this movie with these three words: Not f'ing around. Written by Claudio Fragasso (Rats: The Night of Terror) and directed by Bruno Mattei (The Seven Magnificent Gladiators, Robowar), this is a pull no punches nunsploitation shockfest. You think mother! was bad? Then you are by no means ready for this one. A baby gets boiled alive and that's the very least of the shocks in store. And if you're Catholic, well, get ready to go to confession.Boasting a Goblin score stolen from Beyond the Darkness, you'll get a Mother Superior who rants and raves while locked in the basement, a gardener who is up to no good, possessions, a nun bragging about having sex with the Devil and so much more. And why are dolls hanging from the ceiling of a convent? Who knows!Oh yeah - between priests being set on fire and a nun's severed head in the sacristy, this movie is every nightmare you had in CCD class. When Mother Vincenza yells, "The genitals are the door to evil! The vagina, the uterus, the womb; the labyrinth that leads to hell; the devil's tools!" you'll either cheer or recoil in terror, depending on whether or not you ever sat through a five hour Good Friday mass.Can the young scientific priest (Carlo De Mejo, City of the Living Dead, The House by the Cemetery) stop all of the screaming nuns and bring the fear of God back to this convent? Or will an evil cat bring his doom?Seriously. This movie tested even my resolve of how far is too far. Which is just another way to tell you that I loved it.

When I think of Bruno Mattei, great horror films don't usually spring to mind; and The Other Hell does nothing to change that opinion of him. Much like his Video Nasty zombie flick, Hell of the Living Dead, The Other Hell is highly derivative of other, and better, genre films and came along some time after it's genre hit it's 'golden period'. Nunsploitation is most famous for sexually repressed nuns and tons of nudity, but this one adheres more closely to the Anita Ekberg vehicle 'The Killer Nun', as it features a Giallo style plot that puts most of its focus on murder and more or less completely ignores sex and nudity. This definitely does harm the film, and it's made no better by the fact that the mystery presented is hardly fascinating. The film follows a couple of murders in a convent. The Mother Superior believes that the nuns have become possessed by the devil, and a priest is dispatched to try and get to the bottom of the mystery (they'd have been better off with a detective...). Are the nuns really under the power of Satan, or is that what the Mother Superior wants everyone to believe? Not only is Bruno Mattei one of the less talented Italian filmmakers, he also has a rather annoying penchant for ripping off the better ones. The film features a score from Goblin, which the director has ripped off from Joe D'Amato's masterpiece 'Beyond the Darkness' (he also ripped off Goblin scores for Hell of the Living Dead), and he took D'Amato's lead actress from Beyond the Darkness, Franca Stoppi. Some of the sequences in the film are very well shot, however, and although it's obvious that Mattei was taking influence from masters such as Dario Argento and Mario Bava, it's only fair to give credit where credit is due. The cinematography is crisp and clear, although the locations often leave a lot to be desired as unlike other films in the nunsploitation tradition; the convent is pretty bare. The plot gets lost sometimes, and it has to be said that a fair proportion of this movie is rather boring; but it just about comes together at the end, and while the reasons for the murders are obvious all the way through; the ending itself isn't bad. Overall, I would recommend this to die-hard nunsploitation fans, but everyone else can feel free to skip it.

Well I would start by saying that this is a bizarre movie, but the sub genre of nunsploitation is entirely bizarre, so that doesn't help you any further. Fact is, however, that Bruno Mattei's "The Other Hell" starts being strange from the very first minute, as a nun randomly dwells through the grisly catacombs of her convent and meets up with a second nun who's in the middle of mutilating a third (and dead) nun's genitalia! We ought to assume that this dead sister was a severe sinner, as the second nun refers to her vagina as "the doorway to hell". Oh, and then suddenly a red-eyed monster appears briefly! Apparently, there are more sinister events going on in this particular convent, as the Vatican appointed young priest Valerio to investigate the strange murders there. Are these nuns possessed by the devil himself or has simply one nun gone on a violent killing spree? This is probably Bruno Mattei's best movie (alongside "Women's Prison Massacre"), but still not on the same quality-level as other contemporary Italian horror. The script is incredibly incoherent, the acting performances are pretty damn lousy and - as usual - Mattei shamelessly copies cool ideas from other movies. That bloody dog-attack, for instance, is obviously inspired by Dario Argento's "Suspiria". Nonetheless, there are a handful of exciting gore-sequences, some twisted dialogues and a remotely suspenseful climax. Luckily Mattei could also rely on another dazzling electrical score by Goblin and some genuinely uncanny set pieces. The prototype nunsploitation-movie (like Joe D'Amato and Jess Franco make them) usually contains a lot of sleaze, brutal whippings and lesbian sex, but (sadly?) you won't find any of that in "The Other Hell". This is an overall entertaining exploitation flick, yet only avid cult-collectors should spend money on the fancy Shriek Show DVD edition. If you like the concept of convent-horror without all the unnecessary sleaze and nudity, I also highly recommend Mariano's Baino's "Dark Waters".

A Nun named Sister Christina becomes lost in the skull and bone strewn catacombs under her Convent. Eventually she finds Sister Assunta who is currently embalming a dead Nun in what looks like a cross between a dungeon and Victorian laboratory with lots of bubbling test tubes and strange looking scientific equipment, hey this is Bruno Mattei and that's all you need to know! After some insane rambling about "the genitals are the doorway to evil!" Assunta mutilates the dead Nun's vagina, kills Sister Christina and dies herself soon after. Father Inardo (Andrea Aureli as Andrew Ray) tries to question the other Nun's in the convent but all his attempts are meet with silence apart from Sister Rosaria (Paolo Montenero) who tries to talk with Father Inardo and warn him, but starts to cough up blood and is taken away to be treated. Later that night, as Father Inardo performs an exorcism to rid the convent of evil, Sister Rosaria develops the stigmata (wounds on the feet and hands that resembles Christ's) and dies. Father Inardo reports back to the Bishop (Tom Felleghy) and says he feels the convent is rife with evil satanic forces. The Bishop thinks Father Inardo's conclusions are about as useful as a used tea bag so he appoints a 'special investigator' called Father Valerio (Carlo De Mejo) to take over and complete the rest of Father Inardo's work. Father Valerio thinks that the Nun's deaths are committed by someone who has a secret and will kill to hide it, and not by Satan. He begins to question the Nun's but finds them very hostile towards him which he thinks is because of Mother Superior Vincenza (Franca Stoppi) who is very dictatorial. Soon Father Inardo has an 'accident' and is killed. Father Valerio decides to take drastic action to solve the mystery, which after some detective work he does. The convents shocking truth is revealed but will Father Valerio live long enough to tell anyone about it?Better known to English speaking audiences as The Other Hell this Italian production was co-written and directed by the notorious Bruno Mattei under the pseudonym Stefan Oblowsky. I personally thought that this film is more competent than most of Mattei's output that I've seen, but that isn't saying much. The script by Mattei again as Oblowsky and Claudio Fragasso is a bit of a mess and it's all rather stupid, we even get a zombie Nun at the end. And the way Valerio discovers the truth is totally ridiculous, a spirit possesses his projector and shows him the truth like it was a film! You have to see it to believe it. The revelation at the end is OK and ended things quite nicely, just don't think about it too much. There's surprisingly no nudity apart from a naked dead body and not much gore, someone is attacked by dogs and their throat is bitten out and a burnt corpse is about as nasty as it gets. There is also a sequence of the grounds-keeper Boris (Franco Garofalo as Frank Garfeeld) chopping the head off a live chicken with an axe, so animal lovers beware! The special effect that depicts Satan is poor, it has glowing red eyes that are obviously just lights that flash on and off. The exploitation elements we expect from a film such as this are sadly lacking. The acting is OK for this type of thing but they aren't helped but the predictably poor dubbing. My favourite part was the attic full of large dolls and mannequin's hanging from the ceiling which looked quite creepy and different, but why would a convent have an attic full of dolls and mannequin's hanging from the ceiling? Like many things in this film it's never explained. I also liked the catacomb scenes too, the walls are strewn with skulls and bones but again why this is part of a Nun's convent I don't know. The general atmosphere is pretty good as is the production design and photography by Giuseppe Bernardini is professional enough. The music mostly by Goblin appears to have been stolen from another film, which doesn't surprise me as it's not really suited to the on-screen action. It's OK overall but it isn't anything particularly special, just about worth watching if you like this type of Euro/exploitation film.