SEAT AT THE BACK: FRIGHTFEST - 2018: 'LUCIFERINA' // "OTT, oversexed, drugged-up, demonic, deranged

LUCIFERINA

// Contains *BIG SPOILERS* in the hallucinogenic herbs . .
WATCH BEFORE READING!! //

This was the film at this year's FRIGHTFEST that I most wanted to see. Well, OK - second only to CLIMAX - but that's a given. It's a shame that the director (Gonzalo Calzada) couldn't make the premiere as his movie was an absolute scream.

Horror cinema can often be irritating, provoking, long-winded or deranged - but that's what keeps it fresh and exciting, and ambitious. LUCIFERINA was, at times, all of this.

It could be irritating: the climax had about 5 false starts that were all fairly lengthy, and similar. But I soon gave in. As the delirious runtime extended, and the climaxes kept coming (this Devil just wouldn't die) - I was only having a deliciously good time in there and didn't care about lunch anymore! And later, as I walked out of the cinema, I realised that - why should horror movies follow established expected formats and time schedules? It was fair play that the demon kid in LUCIFERINA (most likely the Devil himself) takes a really long time to deal with. I mean, come on - he's the Devil! He hasn't been defeated yet, ever (not even in OMEN III: THE FINAL CONFLICT, which got kinda close).

The final conflict in LUCIFERINA may have felt a little long-winded with lots of talk about how to isolate the beast and the nature of virginity as a weapon of mass destruction (yes - really!) but at least it was never boring - never less than authentically deranged. Deranged, but addictive. And relentlessly crossing those safe, protective salt lines or circles in the sand that other entries in demonic nun horror cinema are so often happy to do. Was this Argentinean director, who seems to have a Rob Zombie divisive reputation back home, actually the Gaspar Noé of satanic ritual flicks? You don't need to cast any runes to know my answer to that. LUCIFERINA was an absolute filthy, dirty blast to the senses and a revolting rip to the heart of restraint: this is what horror is.

The satanic ritual is thus: A young novice nun returns to her twisted family in the lush countryside after her mother's mysterious death and finds her father traumatised, painting demonic images on his bedroom walls and spending most of his time wrapped in bandages and on a ventilator. Her sister (they were both adopted) has gone all Siouxsie Sioux and has a new boyfriend with a personality bypass and knife fetish (when not trying to sexually assault his girlfriend's virginal younger sister in the family cupboard).

All the young nun's friends want to do is mock her virginity or take mystic herbs in the forest to identify the truth of what happened to these two crazy sisters when they were little girls. Clue: Think - a big bloody chunk of TO THE DEVIL A DAUGHTER and half a dozen plucked hairs of THE EXORCIST and you'll be getting close (without the need to take herbal hallucinogenics).

It's easy to be silly with a film such as LUCIFERINA, despite the film's mirroring of the current trend for the partaking of the ayahuasca vine, or the chacruna shrub - for tourism ritualis in South America (partaken by those in search of the exposure of death). But it's a kind of nervous giggle that rises inside watching LUCIFERINA uncurl - the kind you find in a trauma unit, as a way of cleansing the air.

The film is beautifully directed, with a roaming, frantic, stylish gaze (like a hunter, with a camera) across a lush visual landscape full of hidden churches, abandoned mystics and weird statues loitering in the dense undergrowth. Nifty effects abound: gore is used sparingly and targets the eyes - but this is not a gore fest. Characters interact thanks to the film's refusal to just die and be done in the name of horror film formatting - you may even find yourself rooting for the weirdos and psychos along the way.

There's a terrific central performance from Sofia Del Tuffo as the battling young novice nun (a role with shades of Jess Franco's classic but super sleazy LOVE LETTERS OF A PORTUGUESE NUN) with supernatural sight under threat from demonic intent - full of passion and fight - and you stay on her side to the end. Also fabulous is Malena Sanchez as the twisted sister and Pedro Merlo as the boy possessed, who has to growl and spit and chant and never once come across as laughable or OTT: a cleverly quite restrained and sympathetic turn.

Demonic horrors often come across as stupid and full of boring, seen it all before, religious or demonic imagery and black mass overload, that never feels all that authentic - more of a horror by numbers for less gifted filmmakers to hide under.

Not so with LUCIFERINA. I felt the evil grow. If you love horror you should absolutely fall in love with this movie and demand it's on your Amazon wish list (other wish lists are available) right now!

Highlights of the film include a disgusting, disgraceful, demonic birth (it's all gone a bit To The Devil A Daughter again!) and a Nun Vs Devil Vs Novice threeway battle within salty candlelit circles and ruined stone walls. We also get bodies levitating or flying through the air (the demonic equivalent of a boy scout badge) and the herbal magick ritual trip in an old abandoned church comes across like THE CRAFT as directed by Fulci.

Scenes back at the family home are awash with slightly lesser - but no less depraved - wanton sexuality and ritual, orchestrated by a sinister, controlling patriarch. But the 'quietly innocent, fight-primed, second sight-loaded - and quite a bit cute - girl' Vs 'possessed, red-eyed, deep growling, spitting - and quite a bit cute - demonic boy' finale (when suddenly disrobed) is worthy of the legendary Jess Franco himself - turned up to 616. Basically, if you love cult, crazy, off-kilter, wild occult horror, you'll absolutely want to propose your love, get married and consummate to this one - all on the same night!

Probably deeply politically incorrect and morally questionable and certainly ready to offend from the start, the film is also blessed with a gorgeous soundtrack full of sombre orchestral languishing. Strange sounds come pulsing, rumbling, grumbling and lots of Latin chanting creates a sense of ominous pace and worsening restlessness. It never tires or lets up and the FRIGHTFEST audience were dead quiet throughout - none of that sarcastic tittering or shuffling in seats: we sat there transfixed/ in a trance/ possessed. What we were watching felt authentically depraved, horrific and oh so wrong!

The ambitious two hour runtime never dragged and just when we thought it was all over and hadn't exploited its young leads with too much sexually depraved occult degeneration just yet - because we all knew this was a given, the finale truly went for the jugular and ended it all on a stone altar in the middle of nowhere without any clothes on - Gaspar Noé eat your heart out! Clearly virginity can - in horror cinema - be the only weapon against evil that always seems to work.

Don't see this movie unless you want to be assaulted with an overdose of the occult and the perverted, unless you want to find yourself wallowing in a luxurious landscape full of ancient abandoned ruins, unless you want to be surrounded by the stench of burning hallucinogens as you go crawling through strangling vines full of demonic birthing rituals, and unless you want to be plunged into the heart of a tropical sex magick battle to the death in a secret, and ancient, and forbidden place.

A FRIGHTFEST screening hasn't been this much fun and feather ruffling since HIDDEN IN THE WOODS or THE ROTTEN LINK. This is wild demonic horror as you always thought it could be. I loved it. And the shocked, head penetrated by horror stagger outside of the smaller (but packed out) Discovery Screen crowd when it was all over, looked way too good for a screen this small.

STUFF WE'D PUT ON THE POSTER:

OTT, Oversexed, Drugged-Up, Demonic, Deranged - Tick, Tick, Tick, Tick, TICK!

Has So Much Fun With The Genre That It Drags All Other Demonically Possessed Horror Flicks Featuring Satanic Nuns Into Urgent Confession