Ourweekly columnStaff Pickstakes you back to a time when video stores reigned supreme andthe "Staff Picks" section was the placetofind outwhat films were worthy of one's time.Of course, our version ofStaff Pickshas a decidedly skintillating angle, as we suss out the films from a particular subgenre are the best to find great nudity. This week, we get sacrilegious and sacri-licious with one of the greatest exploitation subgenres, Nunsploitation!
Whether fiction or non-fiction, tales of nuns gone wild have piqued readers' interests for hundreds of years. Nuns are established authority figures who often wield disciplinary power over their congregants, making them a prime target for ridicule. Although the official subgenre known as Nunsploitation is a relatively new one, it has existed in popular culture in one form or another since medieval times. It's most explosive bout of popularity came in the 1970s as Catholic-dominant countries like Italy, Spain, and Mexico saw the religious leaders as the perfect avenue from which they could explore themes of Satanic possession, hysteria, and lesbianism.
The vast majority of these tales are set in the distant past, when cloistered nuns would usually suffer some sort of breakdown in societal norms, whether through internal or external forces. The otherwise stoic and devout women would then give in to their basest desires, flagrantly violating as many of the ten commandments as they could over the course of 90 minutes. Many of the films reached the same conclusion, the devil was involved and therefore must be driven out of the convent. However, as we've all found out over the past two months, sometimes isolation is enough to drive people insane, and these nuns didn't have the internet to keep themselves occupied.
Exploitation cinema was always a way for filmmakers to delve into the deepest and darkest avenues of the human psyche with extremes in sex and violence. Nunsploitation just transports all of that into the realm of religious transgression, making those themes all the more resonant for anyone who grew up in and around the church. There are no "bad" examples of the genre, to be honest, and most every film that traffics in this realm is about as good as any other. Many of them, being foreign films, are hard to track down in this day and age, though many specialty houses like Arrow, Kino Lorber, and Vinegar Syndrome have been cranking out new restorations of these flicks. Here are five of our favorite Nunsploitation flicks...
The Devils (1971)
**Portions of the following text are excerpted from our SKIN-depth Look at Ken Russell's Films Part One
The film also features a brief topless scene from the lovelyGemma Jones, whose affair with Grandier is what sets off Sister Jeanne's plot for vengeance...
I've been saying this for well over a decade now, but either Criterion or BFI really need to get on the ball and give us a full, restored, uncut version of this masterpiece on home video. It's long overdue at this point and I hope I live long enough to see the film get the release it so richly deserves.
Satànico Pandemonium (1975)
This Mexican film was inspired by Ken Russell's The Devils and has a legacy that extends beyond the realm of 70s Nunsploitation asthe titlefamously inspired the name of Salma Hayek's character in From Dusk Till Dawn! Like The Devils, this film relies on the notion that Satan—played here by Enrique Rocha—has possessed one of the convent's nunshelp spread his influence throughout the congregation. The possessed nun here is Sister Maria (Cecilia Pezet), who begins having visions of a world where she and her fellow nuns are allowed to run free. Of course, as luck would have it, these aren't heavenly visions.
Originally released here in the States under the titleThe Sexorcist, the film didn't gain much traction with American audiences until the aforementioned Dusk Till Dawn reference drove new interest to this Nunsploitation classic. It has since become one of the more notable examples of the subgenre, and will be making its high def Blu-ray debut in just a few weeks courtesy of specialty house Mondo Macabro. Cecilia Pezet goes the extra mile in the film, baring all in a series of skintillating scenes, including one that may or may not have inspired a moment from the climax of Paul Schrader's recent flick First Reformed...
**Available to stream for free via TUBI
Killer Nun (1978)
So far we've heard from Mexico and Great Britain, but how did the Italians handle Nunsploitation? In much the same way as their Mexican and British counterparts, of course, with some very bloody differences. The giallo movement in Italy was in full swing by 1978 and there's a nicebit of crossover between the two subgenres in directorGiulio Berruti's Killer Nun.Busty Swedish beauty Anita Ekberg, who stole hearts worldwide with her fountain dance in Federico Fellini's La Dolce Vita 18 years earlier, stars here as Sister Gertrude, who is recovering from surgery to remove a brain tumor. However, this surgery has caused Gertrude to lose touch with reality, as she soon begins experiencing addiction issues, violent hallucinations, sexual promiscuity, and—GASP—lesbian impulses!
While working in a care facility for the elderly, Sister Gertrude becomes addicted to heroin and is thought to be responsible for a number of attacks on her patients. Mother Superior (Alida Valli) dismisses concerns that something may be wrong with Gertrude, but a handsome new doctor (Andy Warhol favorite Joe Dallesandro) convinces her otherwise—though his motives are not completely transparent either. Perhaps the biggest differentiating factor between this film and the others we've already discussed is that this is a contemporary-set story and not set in the distant past. We'll be talking about more contemporary-set films here in a bit, but this is one of the only examples of a Nunsploitation film made and set in the 1970s.
While the lovely Ms. Ekberg herself doesn't go nude in the film, she does manage to convince another nun, SisterMathieu (Paola Morra), to take a trip to the Isle of Lesbos, if you catch my drift. Paola has several nude scenes in the film, baring all after their hookup and again while being examined by Dallesandro's doc...
**Available to rent or own via iTunes
Dark Habits (1983)
**Portions of the following text are excerpted from our SKIN-depth Look at Pedro Almodóvar's Films Part One
In order to secure financing for his third feature,Dark Habits, Pedro Almodóvar entered into a financial agreement with wealthy industrialistHervé Hachuel who had a desire to get his long-time girlfriendCristina Sánchez Pascualinto the acting business. Uncertain of her talents, Almodóvar gave Pascualthe ostensible leading role of cabaret singer Yolanda in what ultimately amounted to an ensemble piece in which many of his regular actresses would have equally prominent roles.
When Yolanda's boyfriend overdoses, she finds herself on the run from the law, afraid of being implicated in his death. She seeks refuge in a convent of nuns offering room and board to wayward souls, but soon finds that these aren't a bunch of "Dominique" singing Catholic stereotypes, but rather a pack of wayward souls who themselves offered their lives to the lord. From the heroin addicted lesbian Mother Superior (Julieta Serrano) to the delusional animal lover Sister Damned (Carmen Maura) and the smutty novelist Sister Sewer Rat (Chus Lampreave) these ladies turn the film's title into a cheeky double entendre!
In a classic bid to save the nunnery, the sisters offer to put on a fundraisingbirthday celebration for Mother Superior,with Yolanda as the centerpiece attraction. The film's only nudity comes, appropriately enough, fromCristina Sánchez Pascual,who goes topless in the solitude of her room, only to find Mother Superior ogling her from the doorway...
**Available to rent or own via Amazon Prime Video
Nude Nuns with Big Guns (2010)
How about modern Nunsploitation? It does indeed still exist, with such flicks as The Little Hours and St. Agatha having come out in the last few years, but the closest example to a pure-70s Nunsploitation flick is this 2010 effort from director Joseph Guzman. Although better known for a legal battle the film faced in California due to excessive illegal downloads of the film in early 2011, the film's heart is most assuredly in the right place to create something that feels both like a throwback to the good old exploitation days and completely contemporary.
Although made in America and shot in English, the film is set in Mexico where an idealistic young nun named Sister Sarah (Asun Ortega) is sold by her corrupt clergymen to a drug gang called Los Muertos they have dealings with, who turn her into a sex slave. After being assaulted and inundated with drugs, Sister Sarah comes very close to death when she suddenly receives a vision from God, telling her to take her revenge against all those who wronged her. Armed with the titular heavy machinery—in both senses—she goes on a vengeful rampage fueled by divine intervention.
The title tells you pretty much everything you need to know about this flick, as it features nearly a dozen nude scenes, with lots and lots of ladies getting in on the action! Sister Sarah's fellow nun Sister Angelina has a skinsational lesbian encounter with Jessica Elder which was extended for the film's Unrated home video release...
Jessica Bonanni and Tiffany Cache play strippers working at the club where Los Muertos is headquartered, with both babes baring their breasts while dancing for the clientele...
It's Asun Ortega as Sister Sarah that gets the most screen time in the buff, however, baring all in a number of skintillating scenes and even having a steamy two and a half minute sapphic sex scene with Sarah Emmons...
**Available to rent or own via Amazon Prime Video
