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 The movie is called an "Italian nunsplotation epic" and the boxcopy uses words
like "demented" and "rabid" to get across their movie's assets. Mentally
disturbed and sex crazed nuns "lose their habits and morals with equal gusto."
There is also a favorable quote from a magazine I've never heard of, but I
suspect the magazine is affiliated with the company that released this video. 1973, 93 minutes, Widescreen, DVD
This film is brought to us by Redemption, the U.S. releasing arm of the U.K.
based Salvation Films. Things start off with some sexy babes all gussied up in
their Sunday-best latex fetish outfits. These women sometimes grope each other,
sometimes have fangs and sometimes have large black feathery wings (huh?). They
also babble periodically about submissiveness and fetishes and try to talk all
sexy like. At one point we have watch blood streaming down breasts for no
apparent reason. This stuff is all shot on video lending it that "cheap porn"
look. What is the plot of this movie you ask? Well, it turns out that the movie
hasn't even started yet. This crap is the Redemption version of Elvira,
Mistress of the Dark. This woman with the fangs and wings or something
introduces the upcoming feature for us. All this went on and on for five or ten
minutes and was like watching an Anne Rice movie. Not a winning start by any
means.  Finally, the movie begins. At least this one is shot on film. Right away
there's trouble. The title on the video packaging and the introductory segment
is The Sinful Nuns Of Saint Valentine . They translate the title of this movie in the subtitles as The Excommunicates of St. Valentino . Quite a bit of difference if you ask me. Would I have watched this if I had
known it was about "excommunicates" instead of "sinful nuns"? Do you really
have to ask? So right away I know that Redemption has pulled a double cross on
me, but as Bobby Knight might suggest, I just decided to lay back and enjoy it.
The movie opens with our hero Estoban being hassled by some geeks from the
Spanish Inquisition. They wound him and he escapes. Estoban has been accused by
the father of his girlfriend of killing a bishop. This is a kind on
nunsplotation version of Romeo and Juliet. Lucia's father feuds with Estoban's
family and will do anything to keep them apart so it's the convent for her and
some trumped up murder charges for him.  We spend quite a bit of time during this movie at the convent. I guess that's
a good thing since this is supposed to be a nunsplotation classic or something.
The video box has promised that all sorts of nasty and perverted things happen
at this convent. Well, let me break it down for you. You get one half-assed
whipping of a topless nun by another nun, Lucia gets stretched a little while
topless by the inquisitor, you get some lesbian gropings, and the mother
superior manages to screw Estoban. That's it. Oh and a memo to the idiots in
the Redemption marketing department: the people on the cover of your DVD
package do not appear in this movie and the nuns in this movie wear grey
outfits not the standard black ones with the big gaudy cross that you show on
your cover. In short, this movie doesn't even come close to living up to its
title of "sleaze classic."  In any event, once Estoban is wounded, he seeks refuge in a convent and is
hidden there by the old guy who works there as a butler/groundskeeper kind of
guy. This, as you may suspect is the very same convent where the lovely and
occasionally stretched Lucia is being kept. Also at this convent is the mother
superior who is completely nutso. So Estoban hides there for awhile, the
inquisition looks for him and then a nun gets slashed! Who done it? Well, Lucia
gets blamed for it, but you and I both know she didn't do it. But she gets
shipped off to Inquisition headquarters to get burned at the stake. The mother
superior finds out Estoban is there so he has to screw her. I'm not exactly
sure why, but it was a pretty funny sex scene that involved Estoban making
weird faces as he mauled this woman. Estoban goes out to find Lucia and gets
the help of her father who now is having second thoughts about this whole
convent idea. The inquisition then investigates the convent and they find a
body in the garden. Whoops! Then they find another one. How'd that get there?
Then they find the old man down at the bottom of the well. Must've been
thirsty, I guess. Then it all comes out that these guys are guys that the
mother superior did the unskinny bop with. You see, it turns out she actually
worships the devil and makes her nuns procure these guys for her and covers up
for her after she kills them. Guess who really slashed that nun? They frown on
this sort of stuff back in the middle ages so it is decided that the nuns
should be walled up in the convent...alive! And just to keep you interested
they haul Lucia back to the convent and wall her up to! Estoban finds all of this out somehow, gets an band of men together and storms
the convent, liberating those inside. It seems to me that these various events
play out over about two days and that the nuns were only walled up for about an
afternoon or so. In spite of that, the nuns all have spazzed out and gone nuts
because of their heinous fate. They're all dirty, hungry and thirsty. They
fight with one another like animals and several are topless (happens whenever
women get buried alive!). They also grope one another (making another run at
the "sleaze classic" title!). Estoban rescues his girlfriend and the mother
superior is sentenced to die and it all wraps up real nice like. This movie was
competently shot and didn't look amateurish and cheap like I had expected. The
nunsplotation stuff seemed to be at a minimum and the focus was on Estoban
getting his girl back. Other than the nun angle this was a fairly bland movie
that fades from the memory as soon as it ends. To be honest, I'm not really
sure if the girl's name was Lucia. I think it was, but I just can't remember
for sure. This was one of those movies that you watch and shrug your shoulders
at. Was it about perverted nuns? Was it about two star-crossed lovers? Was it
about over?
Reviews © 2004
MonsterHunter
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