Movies From Mars

This early 70's art film is a controversial look at Christianity and the inquisition in the middle ages. It is quite a twisted tale and it sticks with you for a while after viewing.

I really do have a soft spot in my heart for any movie that makes religion look scary. Films like Lucio Fulci's Beatrice Cenci and Bad Boy Bubby are amongst my favorites and now this crazy British flick. Anything you have read about The Devils will not prepare you for the insane vision that Ken Russell pans out across the screen for us. It is unbelievably maddening, relentless, disturbing and I guess offensive to religious folk but then again mentally challenged religious freaks probably have no place watching art films in the first place. They are probably better off reading the same book they always read once again.

For me The Devils was sort of like a cross between Witch Finder General, Beatrice Cenci and Holy Mountain with elements of a Nunsploitation flick thrown in. Of course The Devils ranks above the average exploitation movie in just about every department but the depraved and deprived nun thing is still there.

One of the things that made The Devils such a great experience for me was the fact that there really was no good guy in the whole movie. This is at least by the bibles standards. Sure our main character is better then others in some ways but what it all comes down to is that everybody is a sinner and most of the maniacs in this movie use religion as a shield for their own evil doings. This goes from womanizing to torture, rape and even murder.

In the most memorable and controversial scene a whole convent of nuns are tortured and brainwashed (as if they could be brainwashed any more then they already are) by the inquisition. The bastards who hide behind their robes and cloaks of imaginary good convince the nuns that they are possessed. The nuns go bats-crazy and indulge in a giant orgy. They take a statue of Christ down from his cross and let him in on the fun. They ride the nails in his hands, his torso and even his face (Crown of thorns and all). If the scene in The Exorcist bothered you, where little Reagan sticks a crucifix in her cunt, well then I recommend skipping this one at all costs. Next the women of god are forced to help the inquisitors wrongfully convict a priest who they want out of their way. The priest is brutally tortured into confessing his own blasphemy which is quite ironic and for me very tongue in cheek. We see the priest being beaten to a bloody pulp with hammers and yes it is all in the name of god.

I think it is safe to say that if there is a hell and the inquisition was not it, that everybody who had anything to do with The Devils would be going there. Or they could always just say ten hail Mary's and call it a day.

Black Dynamite kicked our ass in 2009 and brought Blaxploitation back to theater goers and before that Black Devil Doll offended all the yuppie, p.c. idiots. Unfortunately as far as exploitation homage/spoof flicks go only Machete would get wide distribution.

In 2010 Greg Hanson dished out his own exploitation flick in a short 16 minute film. Shot on 16mm film Hanson's brand of bad taste comes in the form of a Nunsploitatin flick. A genre that seems to have been forgotten (or was it ignored). Beautifully framed Thy Kill Be Done shows plenty of talent and I personally couldn't help but wish there was a full length version waiting to come out.

The film opens up in church in which a 12 year old boy over doses on heroin before the priest and the entire congregation. The priest hits the streets and confronts a group of drug dealers and a bad-ass 70's style pimp who stabs and kills the preacher with his trusty switchblade. This means only one thing... Vengeance! and the revenge is acted out by three nuns.

We get an amazing Vietnam flashback complete with stock footage of bombs dropping spliced together with machete wielding nuns. We also get a Flying Guillotine homage (Complete with pope-hat hand dismemberment), Nail gun violence, Baseball bat violence (complete with achy-breaky skulls and a ridiculous moment where a bat is shoved down a mans throat), Neck snapping, Gun violence, Machete to the throat and some memorable quotes "Theres a bunch of Nuns down here... Their beating people up".

Its short, its funny and its just plain awesome!

Diary Of A Nun also known as Diary Of A Cloistered Nun, Unholy Convent and many more is the tale of a girl with an arranged marriage from birth who falls in love with another man. When she refuses to marry, her father sends her off to a nunnery. "If you don't want your daughter to be completely destroyed, get her to a nunnery."
Once inside the convent, things will only get worse for the young nun. First her worldly possessions are taken from her. Next she is stripped and eye-balled by perverted nuns. Then she is locked in a concrete room for 30 days, where she is on the brink of insanity. Inside her concrete cell she is fed beans and water once a day, except on Fridays. Fridays are a day of absence. She is also given a bucket for body fluids and is allowed to wash but under no circumstances is she allowed to speak with her sisters until her 30 days are up. Well the young nun makes it through her trial period without killing herself but that might have been her biggest mistake. From here on she is subjected to perversion, torture and religious madness. Her lover is eventually killed and her father along with the rest of her family disowned her. She is eventually impregnated and banished from the convent.
Diary Of A Closeted Nun is one hell of a depressing movie but its surprisingly clean for a film in the nunsploitation genre. Apparently its based on a true story, which I'm not so sure I believe (After all this is an exploitation flick). We do get a bit of blood but not much at all. One man has his face slashed and another is stabbed in the guts. Then we have a whipping scene and a drowned nun. Diary Of A Closeted Nun does offer up a decent amount of bare flesh but the real shocker of this film is the down trodden path this poor girl is forced to walk.
Fans of ultra trashy Nunsploitation flicks like The Killer Nun will probably be disappointed with this one but anyone who is willing to give it a try might be surprised. Its actually an example of a nun film with some real emotion behind it and a touch of sleaze for good measures. I couldn't help but be reminded of the work of Tinto Brass while watching this one.