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Like most exploitation subgenres, nunsploitation boomed in the 1970s, primarily in majority Catholic countries.
In a group, they form a unified and self-replicating image, virtually indistinguishable from behind.
The men of nunsploitation are generally destabilizing and punitive forces.
Rape scenes are not irregular.
This is a rare subgenre whereyou can almost always expect the Spanish Inquisition.
Most nunsploitation films are genre films.
The blood looks fake and theres lots of it.
The sisters in their care gossip, backstab, and sneak into each others cells.
Which, of course, means plenty of nunsploitation films are pornographic.
Nothing raises the sexual stakes like a vow of chastity.
With so few men around, excluding the directors chair, lesbianism is apparently par for the course.
Corporeal punishment and self-imposed penance make for built-in kinkiness.
The artistic separation of nuns from their piety, however, well predates nunsploitation on film.
In the margins of a 14th-century French manuscript,a cheeky nun leads her monk boyfriend by the balls.
Nunsploitation is, in its own way, a twisted part of this lineage.
Lots of it is terrible, some of it is remarkable.
But if you have no memory for faces?
Well, good luck.
as the camera zooms in on uncloistered tits.
Or the moment when the entire convent rips their habits open in a hysterical mass-flash.
If youre not a hard-core-exploitation nerd, probably dont start here.
(Sure, man.)
Its a softcore fantasy with a knife fight on the side.
Maybe close one eye.
And tilt your head too.
Her attendant inner conflict predictably manifests as a thorny cilice worn in penance because nunsploitation movies justlovethorny cilices.
The seeds of the subgenres critical streak are here as well, if somewhat undeveloped.
Years later, his doe-eyed goddaughter Catherine is his churchs hopelessly naive and most devoted nun.
(ThisRosemarys Babysequel sucks, you guys.)
As Catherine, Nastassja Kinski is creepy when she wants to be, albeit uncomfortably young for the role.
Worth noting isExtramuros somewhat unconventional narrative approach within the subgenre.
Their relationship is tender and devoted, rather than rampant with bodice-ripping desire.
It also has a lot on its mind: idolatry, repression, hysteria, and science versus religion.
Surprisingly, religion kind of … wins?
(No spoiling which combination concludesThe Other Hell, but its bonkers.
)The Other Hell, Matteis second crack at nunsploitation, is the story of an extremely cursed convent.
By the end of this conversation, both nuns are dead.
Im outside your jurisdiction!
set to a reused synth score by Goblin lifted from 1979sBeyond the Darkness.
Its a damn mess.
Darling, its camp!
Diderots protagonist Suzanne Simonin is a nun only by circumstance.
But theres a case to be made that no one wants depth from the pornier side of nunsploitation.
They want movies likeConvent of Sinners: a breathy series of erotic poses with an exorcism at the end.
For a 90s movie,Dark Watersis wholly indebted to 70s and early 80s horror.
It even has its own pair ofThe Shiningtwins and a rubbery Lovecraftian beast.
Skewing heavily toward the horror end of the nunsploitation spectrum, sexuality is a rare non-theme here.
Put another way: Most ofDark Waters flesh is not for viewing pleasure.
Its either charred or disemboweled.
Borowczyk can always be relied upon for hyperindulgent, sexed-up filmmaking, andBehind Convent Wallsis no exception.
In its appraisal of women and witchcraft,Haxanis distinctly ahead of his time.
Chaos, sacrilege, and surreal cannibalistic group sex ensues.
No man or Abrahamic religion is free from its spite.
I have loved women.
I have enjoyed power.
By this metric, Flavia is by far his closest female counterpart.
Ekberg plays Sister Gertrude, a statuesque care-home ward losing her grip on reality thanks to a morphine addiction.
Alessandro Alessandronis spectacular score punctuates the film with bursts of atonal guitar strumming.
(And the shot of her rosarys shadow dangling over her garter gun holster?
Pure exploitation poetry.)
The men ofMs .45are unrepentant pigs, but its moral universe is a little edgier than you might expect.
But lets also get one thing straight: There is no female Joker.
Joker is the male Ms .45.
3.School of the Holy Beast(1974)
Historically speaking, Catholicisms track record in Japan isnotexactlygreat.
(Your favorite failed priest made a movie about exactly this a few years ago.)
And in true nunsploitation form, its black and white and red all over.
At the beginning ofMother Joan, Father Garniec (Grandier in Russells version) is dead.
The Vatican and the state are notably absent.
And evil,Mother Joanultimately decides, is not the devils work.
It is born only of the human heart.
1.The Devils(1971)
The Devilsis a tortured masterpiece.
For a tragic figure, shes no object of pity.
Then again,The Devilsis, rather famously, no easy movie.
