So, there’s this nun. And she’s killing people. What more could you possibly want?
Okay, how about that she’s also a morphine addict who tends to drop out of reality from time to time? And, oh yeah, she also has a lesbian thing going on with her frequently stark-naked, hourglass-shaped roommate (Paola Morra). And when she’s not doing all of that, she sometimes sneaks into the city where she has anonymous sex with guys in slick suits after she merely makes sultry eye contact with them in bars.
Oh and also she’s played by a pushing-50 Anita Ekberg, whose performance here consists of equal parts going-for-the-gusto in this insane part and seeming to wonder what the hell happened that she ended up here, playing a nasty nun who stomps on an old lady’s dentures.
Her character goes through the exact same crisis (“Wait, where did I make this wrong turn?”), so it works.
Meanwhile director Guilio Berruti plays as many giallo tricks as a rookie filmmaker can manage. Extreme close-ups! Tracking shots! Sudden, brutal violence! What-the-fuck dream/drug-trip sequences! Gratuitous nudity (both male and female)! A plot that jumps right off the rails! And who cares?! Because this is entertaining stuff.
I don’t know if it was the director (Berruti) or the writers (Berruti and Alberto Tarallo) or the producer (Enzo Gallo), but one of these Italians has a serious problem with his Catholic upbringing. Nuns are fucking scary freaks to him.
This is a fun film with some fine guest star turns by seasoned actress Alida Valli as the Mother Superior, Swedish-born Italian exploitation mainstay Lou Castel as a crippled man under Ekberg’s less-than-reliable care and Joe Dallesandro, who’d been in enough Paul Morrissey films to be comfortable with any weird shit that a bunch of daffy Europeans might throw at him.