Beautiful but Confusing
Help, otherwise known as The Convent in English, is a South American Spanish language film that seems on the surface to be influenced by Spanish and Italian horror from the 1960s and 70s. The best thing I can say about it is that it is beautiful.
However, the themes are too muddled. There is a lot of sexualized sadistic violence that just isn't my scene. While I love religious and supernatural horror from the 1970s, this seemed to be leaning more towards exploitation films about dangerous cults that featured a lot of similar nudity along with sado-masochism in the same Seventies European Cult era. But super imposed upon that are some Is It a Ghost or Is This Woman Crazy tropes in random but rapid succession, which to my mind had the effect of the director just throwing things at a wall to see what stuck. There also seems to be overt criticism of the Catholic church while attempting to present some feminist sisterhood themes, the latter of which didn't feel appropriate to me given all of the exploitative sexualized violence.
However, the themes are too muddled. There is a lot of sexualized sadistic violence that just isn't my scene. While I love religious and supernatural horror from the 1970s, this seemed to be leaning more towards exploitation films about dangerous cults that featured a lot of similar nudity along with sado-masochism in the same Seventies European Cult era. But super imposed upon that are some Is It a Ghost or Is This Woman Crazy tropes in random but rapid succession, which to my mind had the effect of the director just throwing things at a wall to see what stuck. There also seems to be overt criticism of the Catholic church while attempting to present some feminist sisterhood themes, the latter of which didn't feel appropriate to me given all of the exploitative sexualized violence.
- thalassafischer
- Mar 8, 2025