Killer Nun (1979)

Excellent, a Must See

It was OK. I don't see why everyone loves it so much. It wasn't very smart or deep or well-directed.

While it doesn't offer any answers, it both thrills and makes you think.

There's a more than satisfactory amount of boom-boom in the movie's trim running time.

A note of full disclosure. I cannot be unbiased in my review of killer nun because I truly believe that she was my third grade teacher at St. Anne's School of my glorious youth. Oh the lessons of phonics and penmanship remain to this day. Anita Eckberg would have been a welcome relief in those classrooms. Here she is Sister Gertrude, still recovering from brain surgery when she becomes hooked on morphine and heroin and has a lesbian affair with a fellow nun. This is not going my way with Bing Crosby, that's for sure. The highlight is Gertie going into a bar and picking up a stranger, taking him to a building's hallway, lifting her skirt and doing something against all the rules of Catholicism that are written in the guidelines regarding proper and decent behavior. Killer Nun is grade b camp, but I found it mildly amusing.

I found Killer Nun to be a great nun-exploitation horror film. It was originally banned in The UK, and was banned in Italy upon it's release. It is about a morphine addicted nun who is sliding into madness, The head nurse & nun in a hospital, finds that Sister Gertrude's increasingly psychotic behaviour to be a danger to the staff and patients around her. She starts to torture some poisoner's in the hospital, breaks an old woman's false teeth, and also stalks the young nuns in the convent for some kinky sex, and lesbianism, I found it to be quite a shocking film to watch in certain parts. I would recommend this film to other viewers to watch, as long as they can take the content of the film.

Without any prejudices, I went into "Killer Nun" with a half smile and a head full of wonder. The taglines on the box don't do this one justice! The soundtrack is so cool it's stupid. The cinematography is right on. The violence and gore is better than "Suspiria" and the overall sleaze is on the level of, say, "New York Ripper." This is honestly one of the only true exploitation films I have seen. It exploits the convent and it exploits religion, without a doubt. But it does it so perfectly and with such an underlying message, it makes it all okay. This film is about hypocrisy, denial, abuse, and depravity. It absolutely defines nunsploitation in my opinion. I can't imagine seeing a film in that genre that is any better than "Killer Nun." I thoroughly enjoyed this one and if you like Italian horror, you will too. One of the coolest flicks I've seen recently.9 out of 10, kids.

Many of my fellow reviewers seem to have very poor opinions of this film, but "Killer Nun" does deserve a second look.What plot there is (loosely based on actual events) concerns Sister Gertrude (a still luscious Anita Ekberg), who was once a respected nun, but is spiraling into madness due to a post brain surgery addiction to morphine.Before long she's abusing her patients, neglecting her duties, seducing her young room mate Sister Mathieu (Paola Morris)and turning a host of ordinary objects (lamp bases, needles, wads of cotton) into implements of death for anyone who dares stand in her way, while stealing their stuff to support her habit.As an added bad taste bonus, we also get Sister Gertrude having anonymous sex in an alleyway and admitting a fetish for humiliation and silk stockings during Sapphic trysts.Unlike most other nunsploitation fare, this movie isn't as explicit as it could be (on the interview on Blue Underground's recent DVD this was revealed as a gesture of respect from director to his star), but it doesn't suffer too much for it, as there is plenty of suggestive and evocative imagery.Ekberg doesn't show much of her famous curves, but nails a cruel seductress hauteur that does plenty to suggest what the character is capable of. Wheather surveying the residents for her next victim or prowling a café for a sexual conquest, there's something distinctly predatory behind those blue eyes, like a hungry cat looking for something small and helpless to torture.Her drug mania scenes are also beautifully shot, with visual references both psychedelic and sacrilegious. Several scenes use sly visual references to Catholic Mass as a way of indirectly connecting religious ecstasy and the more base and carnal kind.There's even a nice, (if somewhat predictable) "twist" ending.All in all, "Killer Nun" is a stylish slice of delightfully trashy exploitation, worth the hour and a half of your time and 7 stars.