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.

A series of brutal murders occur in a convent. Stalwart, no-nonsense priest Father Valerio (well played by Carlo De Mejo) investigates the killings and discovers that the devil himself might be responsible for all the mayhem. Director/co-writer Bruno Mattei does an expert job of creating and sustaining a potently brooding gloom-doom atmosphere. Moreover, Mattei delivers several effectively nasty moments, starting with an incredibly tasteless sequence in which a deranged nun stabs the crotch of a dead woman and subsequently mutilates her vagina (!) before totally flipping out and bumping off a fellow sister. Other grisly highlights are a priest getting turned into a human torch, weird gardener Boris (a memorably creepy Franco Garofalo) having his throat torn out by a German shepherd, and a newborn baby being dunked into a pot of boiling water. This film further benefits from the dusty, cobwebby set design (the basement full of human skulls is especially unnerving), Giuseppe Bernardi's slick, shadowy cinematography, a splendidly severe and sinister performance by Franca Stoppi as the formidable Mother Vincenza, and, best of all, a throbbing, groovy-rockin' score by Goblin. A hugely enjoyable chunk of perfectly offensive celluloid blasphemy.

Mad, seemingly possessed nuns are butchering other nuns in a convent, leading to a wave of panic and hysteria. Seeking some help, Father Inardo (Andrea Aureli) is called in to try to cleanse the convent and rid it of demonic forces, but his efforts prove futile and he is engulfed in flames before he can complete his task. Feeling drastic measures are needed, an unorthodox young priest/investigator named Father Valerio (Carlo De Mejo) is drafted to get to the bottom of things. A self proclaimed "ecclesiastic detective," Fr. Valerio begins investigating the murders, scouring the convent for clues and going through the nun's personal belongings looking for some reasoning behind the senseless slayings. Initially doubtful that demons are actually involved, he senses something is a little off with stern, overprotective Mother Superior, Sister Vicenza (Franca Stoppi), who tries to keep her fellow sisters from talking, seems to be hiding something and refuses to let anyone get near the attic. Is it indeed a case of possession or are the nuns just finding therapeutic new ways to deal with their repression? Even though it drags from time to time, L'ALTRO INFERNO still has many things going for it. First off, the performances are actually pretty good. Stoppi, who has a very expressive, somewhat sinister looking face, gives the standout performance as the secretive head nun. De Mejo is also tolerable as the hero and all of the smaller roles seem to be done with some skill. Secondly, there's some imaginative set design inside the convent. One corridor is lined with hundreds of skulls, leading up to a secret alchemist's lab (?!) complete with a fiery cauldron, bubbling test tubes, beakers and coffins. Upstairs is another strange Bava-esquire room full of cobwebs and angelic-looking mannequins hanging from the ceiling. Another memorable thing about this one are some truly tasteless touches, notably when a crazed nun cuts the vagina (!) out of a corpse and a flashback sequence where a newborn baby is tossed in a pot of boiling water. The movie seems a little overloaded when it comes to the plot, incorporating most of the religion-themed horror bases; possession, stigmata, voodoo, the birth of the antiChrist... Surprisingly, there's almost no nudity. The score by Goblin I believe is mostly lifted from BUIO OMEGA (BEYOND THE DARKNESS).

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".