Not having been raised Catholic my only exposure to nuns was in the movies, and these were primarily feel-good stories- Audrey Hepburn in The Nun’s Story, Debbie Reynolds in The Singing Nun, Ingrid Bergman in The Bells Of St. Mary’s, Rosalind Russell in The Trouble With Angels. Sally Fields in television’s The Flying Nun. But now, thanks to specialty DVDs and Blu-rays, the appalling genre of “nunsploitation” films have popped up. Just when you think you’ve hit the lowest depths of cult films, you find there’s another appalling genre out there to make you squirm.
Early literature from Chaucer to Boccaccio told stories of naughty nuns, but movie “nunsploitation” can be tracked back to Ken Russell’s incendiary The Devils (1971), based on Aldous Huxley’s novel. The movie starred Vanessa Redgrave as a crazed hunchbacked nun whose lust for Father Grandier (Oliver Reed) brings down the walls of the French city Loudun. Derek Jarman’s amazing sets; Russell’s flamboyant style and the film’s shocking imagery of naked nuns possessed and writhing around made The Devils wildly controversial upon its release. With its sex, sadism and devil worship and you have the nun-on-nun action requisite for a lapsed Catholic’s wet dream. Here are a few other “nunsploitation” high (or low) points:
Alucarda (1977) Director Juan Lopez Moctezuma used horror films as the means to express his subversive theories. Innocent orphan Justine is brought to a convent, where she falls under the sinister spell of a demonically possessed, girl named Alucarda (Tina Romero). The movie includes blood rituals, exorcism, a fiery finale and a great moment when a naked Justine rises out of a blood-filled coffin. Michael Weldon in The Psychotronic Video Guide is on the money when he declares: “It has more blood, loud screaming, and nudity (male and female) than just about any horror movie I can think of.”
Behind Convent Walls (1978) A Mother Superior has her hands full trying to keep her novices from giving in to the temptations of the flesh in this bawdy nuns-gone-wild film by Walerian Borowczyk (The Beast).
Killer Nun (1979) Anita Ekberg plays Sister Gertrude, a sadistic morphine-addicted nun who prostitutes herself to support her habit. Murder, lesbianism and Joe Dallesandro as a psychiatrist, fill out this Italian oddity.
Flavia, The Heretic (1974) The striking Florinda Bolkan plays Flavia, a young woman in 13th century Portugal whose brutal father forces her into a convent. She subsequently exacts her revenge by leading a raid on the convent with Muslim soldiers. When her father is killed, she rants, “Now you will pay for bringing me into a world dominated by men!” There’s plenty of nudity and shocking gore in this violent feminist fable by Gianfranco Mingozzi. During one surreal dream sequence, a naked woman climbs into the empty carcass of a cow.
Love Letters Of A Portuguese Nun (1977) Jess Franco’s elegantly filmed erotic film is about sweet virginal Maria (Susan Hemingway), a girl who lands in a hellish convent run by devil-worshipers. She is forced to perform in black masses by and is nearly burned at the stake.
Satanico Pandemonium (1975) Directed by the prolific Mexican filmmaker Gilberto Martinez Solares, this movie is about a kindhearted novice who has visions of Satan. She climbs nude into the bed of a sick boy and stabs him to death, chokes the Mother Superior with a rope and stabs a nun who refuses her lesbian advances. (Salma Hayek’s character in From Dusk Till Dawn was named in homage to this twisted tale).
Convent of The Sacred Beast (1974) Even Japan gets in on the act in this jaw-dropper about a young woman who goes undercover in a convent as a bride of Christ to find out how her mother died. A priest who looks like Rasputin ravishes novices, nuns are whipped to death with roses, and other outrages are perpetrated in this cult classic by Noribumi Suzuki.
Images In A Convent (1979) A convent built on top of pagan-temple ruins, possessed libidinous nuns and an exorcism are the ingredients for the most sexually explicit of these films, directed by Italian sleaze great Joe D’Amato (Porno Holocaust). This one is so wrong it’s right.
Check out Steve Fentone’s crackpot book on the subject: Anticristo: The Bible Of Nasty Nun Sinema & Culture from Fab Press. And just remember, after watching any of these- or even reading this article- you’re going straight to hell.