You've all managed to convince yourself that this is some deep work of genius, but the creator himself has admitted that he was forced to reshoot half of it by his producers and that is what resulted in this boring, incoherent mess that wasn't what he had in mind for this movie at all. Even the director of this movie has gone on record saying that the second half of this movie is crap! Stop deluding yourselves. You're all stroking yourselves over how deep and avant garde this is, yet it was forced on a director by corporate producers looking to make this more mainstream. It's ridiculous. Maybe it could have lived up to its potential without the interference, but that didn't happen. The reality is that this is a broken mess and a failed experiment in film-making.

This is a strange and creepy movie. It is shot in the Ukraine, and in a place with no electricity and only candlelight. It has a creepy sound throughout, and very little dialog.There are nuns that live in this harsh place and they spend a lot of time in flagellation. They also spend a lot of time doing things that make no sense whatsoever. I am sure it does to them, but we are left in the dark.Elizabeth (Louise Salter) visits this strange place. She is there to find out why dear old dad had been making regular payments to these nuns.Mother Superior (Mariya Kapnist), an old crone that must be a couple of hundred years old, assigns Sarah (Venera Simmons) to assist Elizabeth.Her friend Theresa (Anna Rose Phipps) is gone before she gets there, and I am not sure I would trust Sarah.The bottom line is that Elizabeth should have listened to her father.Bloody, gory, creepy, suspenseful, in the tradition of Argento and Bava; a must see.

Troubled young Elizabeth (well played by the lovely Louise Salter) goes to a remote Crimean island to investigate the death of her father and the disappearance of a missing friend. The island is populated by a bizarre order of sinister nuns who reside in a convent. Assisted by the friendly Sarah (an engaging performance by Venera Simmons), Elizabeth uncovers some dark secrets pertaining to her past and discovers an ancient evil force in the bowels of the convent. Director/co-writer Mariano Baino shows a remarkably sharp and stunning eye for unnerving visuals. Moreover, Baino does an expert job of creating and maintaining a compellingly spooky atmosphere and punctuates the picture with occasional outbursts of startlingly brutal violence. The grim, brooding tone gets more progressively gloomy and unsettling as the story unfolds and culminates in an especially chilling last third. The island setting projects a potent sense of dread and isolation. While the narrative is a bit vague, the suffocating brooding mood keeps the film on track and really gets under your skin. Another interesting aspect of the picture is that men are relegated to minor roles; the main characters are all female. It's this willingness to break from standard horror conventions that in turn gives this movie an extra refreshing edge. Alex Howe's handsome, fluid cinematography, Igor Clark's shuddery score, and the uncompromisingly bleak ending all further enhance the overall nightmarish quality of this supremely eerie shocker.

Judging from the other comments, this is one of those films that you either hate or love. Unfortunately, I didn't love it, though I don't seem to have disliked it as much as the "haters." Some of the movie was well done. The cinematography ranged from okay to excellent, particularly with images such as the nuns on the hilltop, and the bus going down a road with telephone poles looking like a trail of crosses. From the standpoint of imagery and atmosphere, the film was quite good.But then there was the story. Or rather, where was the story? I was never able to really figure out what was going on, or how the pieces fit together. Moreover, the job of trying to decipher a plot was made much more difficult by a sound track that was loud and distracting. Although it wasn't a long movie chronologically, it seemed endless during the viewing.Of the four stars I gave it, three were for technical achievement and one was for the story.