The eggshell-eyed Monk and his mad laughter

After years of being a horror fanatic and having reviewed literally thousands of titles in this genre, you'd think I would know by now that completely unknown movies are completely unknown for a good reason? If a film is over thirty years old, yet it doesn't even have ten votes on IMDb and not a single user-comment or external review, it usually means that it is not worth discovering.

"The Mad Monk" is an amateurish, mid-80s Mexican film that is righteously obscure. It's shot on video, and director Julio Aldama practically did everything himself, including taking up the lead role and forcing his entire family to star as well. It's barely 75 minutes long and then still 30-40% of the running time is pure padding footage, like endless church organ playing and dull images of the Mexican countryside. The story is a sort of anthology, with two stories that are melodramatic rather than horrific. They are narrated by an insane monk, who's supposedly Satan himself and has an exaggeratedly over-the-top diabolical style of laughter. On the cover picture, it looks as if the monk has a creepy glass eye, but in the film, he is simply wearing an eye-patch in the shape of half an eggshell. The first tale revolves on a young soon-to-be priest, Father Martin, who meets again with a girl that he knew during his childhood. He madly falls in love with her and openly questions his calling, but when the girl chooses for another man, Father Martin goes berserk. The second tale introduces a financially struggling older couple. The husband receives a talisman that grants him three wishes, but he quickly learns that every wish has a nightmarish countereffect. "The Mad Monk" is a lousy effort, but still it must be mentioned that, essentially, the stories aren't bad. They just don't fit in a horror context.

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