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Somewhere deep in nowhere, New Mexico, there is a village still deeply
rooted in primitive Catholic traditions, ruled by the beliefs of the
Penitentes, a Spanish cult making all sorts of flagellations the center of
their interpretation of Christianity, and including very violent
re-stagings of the crucifixion one of the main rituals of their religion.
Once having been favourites of the Catholic Church, the Penitentes have
long been forced into hiding for their inhuman rituals. A reporter, Mack
(José Rubio), learns about the Penitentes, and persuades his boss to send
him to a village ruled by them. Once in the village, Mack hires Chico
(William Marcos), a naive but good-natured young man, to let him secretly
watch some of the rituals, including a crucifixion procession. Chico is
eventually caught and spills the beans on Mack, who is then found out and
murdered ... There is reportedly more content to this movie
than my synopsis suggests, but since the only copy in circulation is a
edited-down version, that's all I did see, and it's not certain that the
full version even exists (even though there is a trailer making the rounds
showing material not in the film). What Lash of the Penitentes is
though is a wannabe documentary that mixes actual footage of Penitente
rituals shot by Roland Price mixed in with fictional footage based on a
then recent real murder case where reporter Carl Taylor was apparently
murdered for releasing too much information on the Penitentes. This all
then leads to a very sensationalist movie, very much in the vein of the
mondo movies from decades later, a film that's not so much interested in
treating its subject matter with the necessary objectivity but all the
more with the violent, the sleazy and the downright outrageous aspects of
the story. Now this is fun up to a point, but to be quite honest it gets
(even in the cut-down version) a bit boring before long as the
sensationalist footage becomes repititious a bit too soon, and the story
that holds it together doesn't hold too much interest. Still totally
worth a look for vintage obscure movie afficionados like myself, but in
all honesty it promises more than it manages to keep.
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