Nunsploitaton meets Giallo in this sleazy yet stylish effort from director Giulio Berruti which stars Anita Ekberg (the blonde bombshell from Fellini's La Dolce Vita) as Sister Gertrude, a drug dependent, mentally ill nun who believes that she may be responsible for the spate of murders occurring at the hospital where she works.
As one might expect from such a fusion of genres, The Killer Nun offers plenty in the way of depravity: Sister Gertrude bullies a frail, old woman (stamping on her false teeth in rage), regularly shoots up with morphine (paid for with stolen jewellery), has casual sex with a complete stranger, and cosies up to her busty, lesbian room-mate Sister Mathieu (played by Italian Playboy Playmate Paola Morra, who kindly provides full frontal nudity); a randy, old, wheelchair-bound man proves he's still got it by getting a younger woman to ride him hard during a rainstorm; new physician Dr. Patrick Roland (Joe Dallesandro) has a crack at curing Sister Mathieu of her lesbianism; a woman gets needles and scalpels pushed into her face by the murderer; and a guy is dropped from a great height onto his head.
Exploitation fans and gore-hounds tempted by this shocking catalogue of debauchery and death should be made aware, however, that although the film delivers the goods in terms of subject matter, the actual content is fairly tame in execution. Ekberg herself shows very little skin, the sex scenes are 'tasteful' (ie., not overly explicit), and the gore is unlikely to upset all but the most squeamish of viewers (it certainly isn't anywhere near as abhorrent as its 'video nasty' label suggests, but then how many of the 'nasties' actually are?).
Don't be put off by the somewhat mild treatment, though—The Killer Nun still comes highly recommended thanks to its well developed, all-pervading atmosphere of madness and general sense of wickedness, Berruti's confident and classy direction (a little too slow for some, perhaps, but I liked it's measured pacing), the sumptuous cinematography, and the excellent, surreal score by Alessandro Alessandroni, which proves particularly effective when Gertrude is doing her drugs.
As one might expect from such a fusion of genres, The Killer Nun offers plenty in the way of depravity: Sister Gertrude bullies a frail, old woman (stamping on her false teeth in rage), regularly shoots up with morphine (paid for with stolen jewellery), has casual sex with a complete stranger, and cosies up to her busty, lesbian room-mate Sister Mathieu (played by Italian Playboy Playmate Paola Morra, who kindly provides full frontal nudity); a randy, old, wheelchair-bound man proves he's still got it by getting a younger woman to ride him hard during a rainstorm; new physician Dr. Patrick Roland (Joe Dallesandro) has a crack at curing Sister Mathieu of her lesbianism; a woman gets needles and scalpels pushed into her face by the murderer; and a guy is dropped from a great height onto his head.
Exploitation fans and gore-hounds tempted by this shocking catalogue of debauchery and death should be made aware, however, that although the film delivers the goods in terms of subject matter, the actual content is fairly tame in execution. Ekberg herself shows very little skin, the sex scenes are 'tasteful' (ie., not overly explicit), and the gore is unlikely to upset all but the most squeamish of viewers (it certainly isn't anywhere near as abhorrent as its 'video nasty' label suggests, but then how many of the 'nasties' actually are?).
Don't be put off by the somewhat mild treatment, though—The Killer Nun still comes highly recommended thanks to its well developed, all-pervading atmosphere of madness and general sense of wickedness, Berruti's confident and classy direction (a little too slow for some, perhaps, but I liked it's measured pacing), the sumptuous cinematography, and the excellent, surreal score by Alessandro Alessandroni, which proves particularly effective when Gertrude is doing her drugs.