Each month in Horror Queers, Joe and Trace tackle a horror film with LGBTQ+ themes, a high camp quotient or both. For lifelong queer horror fans like us, there’s as much value in serious discussions about representation as there is in reading a ridiculously silly/fun horror film with a YAS KWEEN mentality. Just know that at no point will we be getting Babashook.
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***SPOILERS for Alucarda follow.***
Synopsis: After the death of her parents, a young girl named Justine (Susana Kamini) arrives at a convent and brings a sinister presence with her. Is her enigmatic imaginary friend, Alucarda (Tina Romero) to blame? Or is there a satanic force at work?
Queer Aspect: The film is an adaptation of classic lesbian vampire text Carmilla.
Where to Stream: Alucarda is streaming on Hoopla for free if you have a library card and FlixFling for free if you do the 7-Day free trial.
Joe
Well, Trace, here we are in the dead of summer, slowly going mad as we continue to self-isolate, so I guess it makes sense to program a hallucinatory fever-dream like Alucarda.
This is a film that’s been on my watch list forever, so I’m excited to finally tackle it, even though I’ll admit that I’m slightly overwhelmed by the film on first viewing. The film has a lot of impressive visuals, a fairly clear critique of both religion and science, as well as a staunchly feminist perspective on the inadequacies of men, but obviously we’re most interested in the vast, vast amount of lesbianism folded into this text. This may be a first for us, but as far as I can tell nearly every prominent female character is either explicitly queer or queer-coded?
One element that is interesting is how deceptively light on plot Alucarda is: at its crux, the film is about Justine and Alucarda, fast friends who share a pair of unusual experiences in close succession. They first have an odd encounter with a hunchbacked Romani man (Claudio Brook) who upsets Alucarda, then they discover an abandoned house/crypt in the woods and unlock…something encased in a coffin. From that point forward, the girls are preyed upon by evil forces, including a naked ritual during a blood rain wherein they make-out and drink each other’s blood.
Events escalate when they proclaim their allegiance to Satan during a lesson at the orphanage/convent, drawing the ire of Mother Superior (Birgitta Segerskog) and Father Lázaro (David Silva), the latter of whom orders an exorcism. Justine dies, Alucarda is freed by kindly, but in-over-his-head Dr. Oszek (also Brook) whose involvement eventually leads to a reanimated Justine biting and killing her “friend” Sister Angélica (Tina French). Then Alucarda exacts revenge on the entire convent by immolating a bunch of nuns and priests. It is only when Alucarda sees the Christ-like figure of Sister Angélica carried in that she falls to the ground and disappears.
The above description is, of course, far more lucid and straightforward than how the film plays out, which frequently feels like a waking nightmare. There are moments of horrifically beautiful and haunting imagery, like the sequence when the Hunchback appears in Alucarda and Justine’s room during a storm, strips the girls naked and performs a satanic ritual. Alucarda is bent over nearly backwards, Justine is mute and pliable like she’s a somnambulist, and the rain lashing at the open window through the thunder turns blood red.
This is all intercut with Sister Angélica, who is praying for the soul of Justine, on whom she has a big ol’lesbian crush; as the sequence progresses Sister Angélica becomes increasingly covered in the same blood rain, which director Juan López Moctezuma frames in close-up, as if to conflate the similarities between the Satanic and Catholic rituals while also establishing the bond between the girls.
One of my favourite things about doing this column is the frequency with which we are accused of reaching, and Alucarda provides a great example of how a queer lens can reinforce a traditional reading, but also expand upon it. It would be easy enough to watch this film and see Alucarda and Justine’s relationship (or Sister Angélica’s near-fanatical devotion to Justine) as platonic. Hell, even the unusual bond that forms between Alucarda and Dr. Oszek’s daughter, Daniela (Lili Garza) in the last act could be seen as sisterly.
Introducing lesbianism to these relationships doesn’t necessarily alter the way an audience will process the film, though it does enrich, and even heighten, the obsessive, devotional nature of how the girls react to one another. From their very first encounter, Alucarda and Justine are instant best friends and their glances and touches evoke the kind of teenage love that we see in other queer female “friendships” in films like Heavenly Creatures and Picnic at Hanging Rock. The fact that this affection ultimately leads to death and doom, particularly under the disapproving gaze of a religion that brands their actions Satanic and eventually murders them, likely strikes a familiar chord for queers who grew up Catholic.
Trace, considering your religious upbringing, I wonder how you connected to the themes of repression and persecution in the film? Can we consider Alucarda a queer positive text since its titular character burns the fuck out of her girlfriend’s murderers or is this just a late 70s entry in the sad history of “kill your gays”? Did you like the hallucinatory imagery or were your nerves too frayed by the excessive amount of screaming?
Because wow, there is a lot of screaming in this film.
Trace
I confess, when the film started the only thing I could think about was the “bring out your dead” scene in Monty Python and the Holy Grail. The aesthetic and production design (and video quality, at least on streaming platform FlixFling) is just so similar!
I jest, I jest, because anyone walking into Alucarda expecting anything even remotely similar to Monty Python is in for a rude awakening.
How would one even describe this film? The term “nunsploitation” is thrown around a lot, and while the copious amounts of breasts would support that description, I think it does the film a disservice. On the surface, this is a movie filled with screaming women who are poked and prodded and immolated and decapitated, but the thematic layers of the film undercut any one simple descriptor.
At the risk of making a broad generalization, I will say that one thing that has always bothered me about Catholicism and the people in it is their resistance to living by their own rules. My mother always used to call them “cafeteria Catholics,” meaning that people pick certain Biblical rules to follow, but completely ignore others. It’s hypocritical and, in my experience, the hypocrisy runs deep in the religion*. So I was “happy” to see the priest and nuns submit themselves to a flogging when their attempts at curing Alucarda fail. I put “happy” in quotes because the scene is still incredibly disturbing, but I enjoyed seeing a group of people actually practice what they preach (as extreme as their methods might be).
*I should also point out here that I’m in no way trying to chastise the Catholic faith or its members, but my experience being raised Catholic exposed me to a lot of hypocritical individuals.
I don’t entirely know how I view the film’s position on queerness. On one level, it’s the queer characters who fall under the spell of….the devil? A vampire? Whatever this evil entity is that has an eye out for religion, men and science.
With a scant runtime of 78 minutes, there isn’t really a lot of character development in Alucarda (unless you count repeating the names “Alucarda” and “Justine” over and over and over as character development). That’s where the film falls a bit flat for me. All we really know about Alucarda before the possession takes hold is that her mother suffered a similar affliction from the thing that possesses her. We know even less about Justine, and that she is the first to die leaves an odd taste in my mouth. Alucarda is a bit of an endurance test in that we’re just constantly watching people suffer, but I’m not quite sure what message the film is trying to send.
As for the ending, we can read it one of two ways: Alucarda and Justine are vengeful queers (perhaps she is so easily possessed because of her sinful queerness?) or they are merely victims. The climactic scene reminded me all too much of Brian De Palma’s Carrie, which was released just a year prior to Alucarda. In that respect, I sympathize with Alucarda and Justine. They did not choose this life (or death) and the film ends on a sad note. I don’t know if I’d view it as “kill your gays”; rather that Alucarda chose a path of forgiveness when she is confronted with the body of one of the few people to treat her kindly (I’m likening Sister Angélica to Betty Buckley’s Mrs. Collins in Carrie).
And the screaming. Oh God, the screaming. About 30 minutes into the film my husband walked into the living room and asked me if there was any actual dialogue in the film, because all he could hear from the other room was the constant screaming.
That is what really gives the film the fever dream quality you mention, Joe. Yes, Moctezuma’s camerawork is hypnotic, and the poor transfer actually works in the film’s favor in this regard. Supposedly, Mondo Macabro, the home for Alucarda’s DVD release in 2002, recently wanted to go back and do a nice restoration for the definitive Blu-Ray, but when they flew in to get the print, it was gone. No known surviving copies of the print exist, so we’ll never get a clean, crisp transfer of Alucarda…but maybe that’s for the best. It gives the film a dirty feel that fits the material perfectly.
Joe, what did you think of the film’s personification, er…goat-ification(?) of Satan? Do you view the ending of the film as nihilistic, or is there an element of hope involved in Alucarda’s demise? We haven’t touched a lot on Claudio Brook, who plays both Dr. Oszek and the Hunchback. That had to be intentional casting, so what do you make of that?
Joe
I am definitely pro-goat Satan. I will say, however, that the image of a man emerging from the woods during a Satanic ceremony wearing a giant frigging goat head is undeniably disturbing. Trace, I agree with you that the griminess of the film does lend it that dirty, exploitation vibe; when we see scenes that combine uncomfortable imagery, boobs and blood, it just feels like a bygone era of cinema. It’s oh-so-70s and I love it.
Sidebar: I know that this won’t mean anything to you, but this film bears a startling visual and religious connection to Alejandro Jodorowsky’s The Holy Mountain (see above), a Mexican film that came out four years before in 1973. That film also blends exploitation, religious allegory and confronting visuals to make its elliptical point and I can’t help but think that the working relationship between Jodorowsky and director Juan López Moctezuma heavily contributed to the way that Alucarda came together.
As for Brook’s casting: yes, his dual role is undeniably intentional and I think it harkens back to the film’s feminist point of view. We’ve tackled the way Alucarda connects religious hypocrisy and queerness, but there’s also a very strong condemnation of science and the inadequacies of men. Just as there are seemingly no straight women in the film, there are no “good” men in Alucarda. In addition to Father Lázaro’s completely inept handling of Justine’s exorcism, there’s the perverted presentation of a threatening male hunchback who sets the girls on their fairytale path to doom. The fact that he reappears later to perform the blood ritual could simply be a manifestation of the evil that they awoke in the crypt…or the Hunchback could be a more malicious figure who always intended to prey on them.
Dr. Oszek doesn’t ultimately fare much better. He is presented as not just a man of science, but of reason. He dresses down Father Lázaro and Mother Superior for their outdated medical treatment of Justine and rescues Alucarda. Hell, he’s so saintly he even has a damn blind daughter! He’s a goddamn saviour.
And yet, he’s no more equipped to handle what’s happening than anyone else: the time he spends bringing Alucarda to his home allows members of the congregation to abscond with Justine’s body, which inadvertently brings about Sister Angélica’s death. And then when he’s dealing with that, Dr. Oszek leaves Alucarda and Daniela alone, which allows Alucarda time to return to the orphanage and initiate the fiery conclusion. Despite initial suggestions that he’s a saviour, he’s revealed to be completely ineffectual; he barely even manages to save his own daughter, never mind the other two girls.
But I really liked having the actor playing the character who pollutes the girls to be the same one who comes closest to saving them. In Alucarda, science and religion (which includes Satanism) are two different sides of the same coin and Brook gets to play them both, just to drive the point home!
As for that ending…this Offscreen DVD review suggests that for all of the film’s religious imagery (Alucarda’s “birth in a manger”, the Inquisition-informed exorcism of Justine on a literal cross), the ending confirms that there is both a place for religion and evil and neither can ever truly thrive or be vanquished without the other.
Ultimately, I just don’t see Alucarda as an evil figure. Despite her actions and her vampiric-like appearance out of the literal shadows when Justine arrives at the orphanage, the film mostly presents Alucarda as a misled girl who has the audacity to fall in love with another girl. When she finally gives up at the end of the film upon seeing Sister Angélica’s corpse, it plays like Alucarda has accepted that her rampage – and life – has come to an end. I suppose that the fact that this seems to provide her with the peace to simply fade away could be construed as happy.
Trace, I know that you don’t pay a ton of attention to costumes, but surely you have some thoughts about the bloody-bandage outfits the nuns wear? Since sound is more your bag, are you surprised to learn that sound engineer Chris Newman also worked on The Exorcist and The Silence of the Lambs? You mentioned that it’s unclear what exactly we’re dealing with (possessions, demons, vampires), so how would you classify the film? Finally, what did you think of the set pieces like Alucarda’s pyrotechnic show and Justine’s big gory moment in the crypt?
Trace
I called the nun’s outfits the “Bloody mummy costumes” in my notes (probably because I’ve been reading George R.R. Martin’s A Song of Ice and Fire series and “Bloody Mummers” is a phrase uttered frequently in those books)!
I didn’t really pay much attention to what their meaning was, but I’ll give it a whirl: much like a typical habit, these outfits are constricting in a way to convey a sense of repression and isolation. Oof, I hope I didn’t offend any nuns reading this article by saying that, but the addition of blood on the cloth just gave it more of a Christly aspect to me (the blood of Christ is a pretty frequent motif in Catholicism, after all).
Good catch on the sound engineer, though! There isn’t much of a score here other than the constant wailing and screaming, but when the music swells, it’s hypnotic. Newman actually won the Academy Award for Best Sound Mixing for The Exorcist, so it makes sense that Moctezuma would want to snag him for the similarly-themed Alucarda.
You’re right in that I haven’t seen Jodorowsky’s The Holy Mountain, but I do know that that film’s visual aesthetic was a big influence on Oz Perkins’ Gretel & Hansel, which was released in theaters (remember those days?) earlier this year. So I kind of get it. So much of Alucarda is staged like a play, even the “pyrotechnic show” you mention. The majority of shots in the film are haunting tableaus that would seem right at home on a stage.
Rewinding a bit to the lack of “good” men in the film, it reminds me so much of Sophia Takal’s Black Christmas remake from last year. People hated that movie, and while it definitely had its fair share of problems, it was far from total failure in my eyes. That being said, one of the most common complaints about the film was (unsurprisingly) from male viewers, who took issue with the fact that there were no likable men in the film. Almost every single man was a despicable human being with few (if any) redeeming qualities and you know what? I get it!
I understand these complaints, but I also understand the reasoning for making characters like this. Men have been (and still are) the dominant force in society, frequently stepping on women to make them feel less than. Making a film in which there are no “good” men isn’t implying that good men don’t exist (though plenty of incels would like you to believe that’s the message being sent out), but rather that, in the world of the film, these are women who have yet to be treated as equals by their male counterparts.
Your reading of Dr. Oszek and the hunchback couldn’t be more apt, but I’ll expand upon it by mentioning the word I think you were looking for: it’s all about duality. Good and evil. Right and wrong. Black and white. Heads and tails (of the aforementioned coin). What Moctezuma and his co-screenwriter Alexis Arroyo are trying to emphasize is the duality of man (and woman). Oh! That’s an example of duality right there! The film is even bookended by a form of duality in the manner in which Alucarda and her mother die. Her mother’s body is left to rot after she undergoes a painful childbirth exacerbated by the fear of a demon, but Alucarda’s disappears after she seemingly finds peace.
After thinking about it more while you wrote your response, I’ve decided that I don’t see Alucarda as an evil figure, either. I sympathize with her. I hesitate to use the word “empathize” because I don’t truly know what it’s like to be an orphaned teenage girl in a convent in 1865. I can relate to her queerness, and that her love of another woman is “rewarded” with possession is truly sad.
At the end of the day, Alucarda is a movie that will be difficult to shake from my mind. It’s one of those films that I call an “experience.” It’s less about the narrative (which, admittedly, is more straightforward in this film than something like Gaspar Noe’s Climax) than it is about simply making you feel something. Watching Alucarda, I felt a lot of things and I was worried they’d be difficult to put into words. Hell, maybe I didn’t even get my point across in this article because I’m still not entirely sure how I felt about the film. But I know that it has the capability to inspire a visceral reaction in anyone who watches it. Maybe that’s all Moctezuma wanted to do.
Next time on Horror Queers: We’re going a bit off-brand to check out a bunch of queer horror shorts!
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