Boobirt Stylish but barely mediocre overall

Intcatinfo A Masterpiece!

Seraherrera The movie is wonderful and true, an act of love in all its contradictions and complexity

Jayden-Lee Thomson One of the film's great tricks is that, for a time, you think it will go down a rabbit hole of unrealistic glorification.

Sam Panico In a Mexican convent and orphanage, a new girl named Justine arrives. She becomes close with another orphan named Alucarda, who was born in a mysterious barn and may be evil before this film even starts. In fact, she often appears in the film out of the shadows, filled with menace and questioning everyone's faith.While the two girls — whose relationship is nearly sexual — play in the forest, they discover a band of gypsies and the barn where Alucarda was born. Then, of course, they open a casket and unleash Satan, who possesses them. They take part in an orgy where the literal goat-headed one himself shows up, which is only stopped when Sister Angélica prays for Jesus to intervene. The witch conducting the ritual is struck down in bloody fashion.A title card comes up telling us that this is the end of part one. I stood up and cheered. I was home alone.Justine and Alucarda start questioning every mass and even praise Satan out loud, questioning the faith of every member of the convent. Father Lazardo demands an exorcism, one that costs Justine her life. Alucarda is saved at the last moment by Dr. Oszek (Claudio Brook, who also appeared in Del Toro's Cronos and who also plays the hunchback who leads the women into the forest). Now, Alucarda has a new love interest, the Doctor's daughter Daniela.Alucarda isn't done. She must have her revenge. She possesses a nun and sets her on fire. Father Lazardo beheads her and the entire monastery must self-flagellate to prepare themselves to fight Satan.Justine's body is gone — it's in the barn where Alucarda was born. When they open it, it's filled with blood and she emerges, now a vampire. While Alucarda kills everyone else. Sister Angélica attempts to save Justine. The doctor tries little spurts of Holy Water but it's not enough. He barely escapes with his life, while the sister pays the ultimate price. Only Angélica's dead body can stop Alucarda, who screams and disappears.You know how I get evangelical about movies? Well, Alucarda is one of them. From the sets to the clothes to the acting to sound design to the just plain weirdness of it all, there's never been a movie quite this weird. And with the movies I've seen, that's an achievement.Read more at http://bit.ly/2gFo5uD

Edgar Soberon Torchia In 1974 director Julián Soler released "Satanás de todos los horrores", a new version of Poe's "The Fall of the House of Usher", suggesting the influence of Juan López Moctezuma's 1972 horror drama "The Mansion of Madness". For López Moctezuma, though, Poe's name and work were as incidental as Sheridan Le Fanu's, whose novella "Carmilla" inspired this masterpiece of gore. The sound and visuals of "Alucarda" went over the top, prompting the publisher of the "Psychotronic Video" magazine to declare that the film had «more blood, loud screaming and nudity than any horror film» he could think of. I suppose that indeed it was, at least in 1978, and it surely called into question the "appropriateness" of the Mexican mini-epics of terror for the middle class that were in vogue, and the stiff upper lip of Hammer vampires and victims of the 1970s. It also came up against the presumptuousness of those Mexican genre directors who denied their cultural roots, in search of a horror cinema made in limbo. In the times of Mexican genre masters Fernando Méndez, Chano Urueta and Rafael Baledón, the Eastern European names and locales of their movies were naïve attempts at worldliness, that made us giggle and panic, as also did products like Portillo's "La momia azteca", that toyed with pre-Columbian cultures and Mexican folklore but was also aligned with the Egyptian mummy of Universal Films. Here worldliness became universal and it was simultaneously rooted in the weirdness or excessive emotion that Mexicans can elicit from themselves as a cultural trait. The representation of fanaticism, guilt, vice and death in "Alucarda", among demented (and lascivious) nuns and monks, proved one more time how correct André Breton was when he declared México «the most surrealist country in the world». Juan López Moctezuma's film gave a grand finale to an era of undeniably wonderful, non-expensive and evocative works in the history of humankind's creation of cultural works of horror, from 1953 (the year when Chano Urueta's "El monstruo resucitado" was released) to 1978, in México.

callanvass (Credit IMDb) A young girl's arrival at a convent after the death of her parents marks the beginning of a series of events that unleash an evil presence on the girl and her mysterious new friend, an enigmatic figure known as Alucarda. Demonic possession, Satan worship, and vampirism follows.I enjoy sleazy movies, anything horror related of this nature. I've heard a lot about this movie over the years, and I finally found it. It's a bit disappointing in all honesty. It's far from bad, but there is nothing overly interesting in this movie. There is some controversial stuff in this movie, such as a brief orgy involving women, lesbianism, among other things, but everything felt tepid to what I expected. There is nobody to root for in this movie. I'm not sure if they were trying to do shades of gray, but there was no real good or evil. The people associated with god are pretentious and annoying, and I didn't really care if anyone lived or died. It didn't help that there was incessant screaming from Tina Romero (Alucarda) the acting is OK. Tina Romero screams too much, but her character is fitfully menacing. I liked how she went chaotic in the ending. It was probably the most interesting thing in the movie. Susana Kamini is good as Justine. I didn't really buy the powerful bond between Alucarda & Justine, though. The gore is average, but it does have some nice moments. We get someone taking a chunk out of someone's neck, a girl bathes in blood, bloody corpses, people are lacerated with a whip, and more. The nudity is decent. We get some zoom on crotches, among other things. This movie is worth a watch if you can find it, but it's a little too dull for my liking. 5.1/10

ferbs54 In case you were wondering whether or not the fact that the name "Alucarda" almost spells "Dracula" backwards has any special significance here, the answer is no, not really. Hardly a tale of vampires, this Mexican film from 1978 rather gives us a look at demonic possession, but, as it turns out, is more--much more--than just a south-of-the-border "Exorcist." The film transpires in the year 1865, but, as it was shot in English, its setting may just as easily be the U.S. as Mexico. In it, we meet a beautiful 15-year-old named Justine, played by the gorgeous actress Susana Kamini. (Indeed, Kamini strongly resembles no less a sex symbol than the young Jeanne Crain, and if, by some weird chance, you've read my reviews on this site for the Crain films "State Fair," "Dangerous Crossing" and "Hot Rods to Hell," you already know what I think of HER remarkable physiognomy!) Newly orphaned, Justine comes to live at an unusual orphanage/convent, which looks more like a labyrinth of underground caves and where the nuns are swaddled in mummylike wrappings. Here, she meets Alucarda (Tina Romero), a pretty young "fey" who convinces her to go on an exploration of a nearby crypt. Unfortunately, by innocently (?) prying open one of the coffins there (that of Alucarda's own mother, as it turns out), a Satanic demon is loosed that wastes little time in possessing both young ladies. And after Alucarda practically rapes the orphanage's priest during confession, what else can the beleaguered congregation do than to...exorcise its rites?From its fairy tale-like beginning straight through to its apocalyptic conclusion, "Alucarda" truly is a remarkable film. It contains more screaming and (somehow appropriately) more over-the-top hysterical acting than any film you've probably ever seen. It may also be one of the bloodiest; indeed, the nuns in this convent seem to be perpetually covered in the red stuff, and not just as a result of some intensive flagellation. I was not surprised, thus, to learn that the film's director, Juan L. Moctezuma, was a friend of Chilean filmmaker Alejandro Jodorowsky and served as an associate producer for his 1970 cult film "El Topo" (the goriest film I'd ever seen, back then). "Alucarda" also features some stunning cinematography--indoor and outdoor--by Xavier Cruz, numerous gross-out segments (those whippings, especially, plus a skewer-filled exorcism AND the picture's most memorable image: Justine rising, admittedly vampirelike, from a coffin filled with blood) and some very bizarre moments (such as the deservedly named Sister Angelica oozing blood from every pore and levitating while she prays for the two girls). Viewers who may be expecting the usual blend of head swiveling, cussing and the regurgitation of pea soup may be both stunned and surprised with the imaginative work that Moctezuma has given us here. The film comes to us from the wonderful outfit known as Mondo Macabro, known for its great-looking DVDs that are simply jam packed with extras. "Alucarda" is no exception. It impressed this viewer so much that I am now eagerly looking forward to watching Moctezuma's first picture as a director, 1973's "The Mansion of Madness," which, happily, is also available from Mondo Macabro....