By Melissa Antoinette Garza
KILLER NUN (1979) opens with Sister Gertrude (Anita Ekberg) working at a hospital for primarily elderly patients. Gertrude is not mentally well and despite begging to be medically admitted, she’s denied. She had a brain tumor removed and became somewhat addicted to morphine which Dr Poirret(Massimo Serato) refuses to prescribe any further. He thinks her symptoms are all psychosomatic and tries to encourage her to get over them.
Gertrude does the right thing and runs to her Mother Superior (Alida Valli) who feeds her the same line as Poirret, but with a more religious connotation.
Gertrude’s mental health diminishes. She reads graphic and horrible stories of torture to the senior citizens while they eat. She then gets annoyed with Josephine (Nerina Montagnani), an old sick woman and violently stomps her false teeth until they’re just shreds. All the other patients gasp in shock as Josephine is just wrecked over it.
Gertrude feels horrible and apologizes, but the poor sad biddy is devastated and can’t even compose herself to take in Gertrude’s heartfelt sincerity. Am I team Gertrude? She makes it difficult, but yeah – I’m team Gertrude.
Gertrude believes everyone hates her and talks to her roommate Sister Mathieu (Paola Morra). The two gorgeous nuns with only a white curtain between them sleep naked. Mathieu walks over to Gertrude’s bed, shyly covering her breasts, but only for a moment. She confesses her love to Gertrude and tells her that she burned the X-Rays to make certain Gertrude gets the help she wants.
Later when Josephine dies, Gertrude steals a diamond ring she finds. She prays for forgiveness and puts the ring away. She shows Mathieu the ring and claims it was her mother’s. Gertrude says she needs to pawn it for the morphine the doc won’t prescribe. She tells Mathieu that she had wanted to give the ring to her and that she had received it when she entered the convent. At least her lies had a romantic spin that included Mathieu. Again, I’m way too forgiving. I could never be on a jury. “Yes, she stole jewelry for heroin from a dead old woman, but when she lied about it to a love interest she made the story a really nice one….so not guilty?”
Whatever the case, Gertrude and Mathieu are yummy together.
Speaking of yummy, Gertrude hits the town after getting high. She looks great in a tight black number, with matching stockings and garters. She grabs a drink and smoke at a bar and shows off her legs to get a patron’s attention. He definitely takes notice and the two share no words. They escape as she leads him from the bar and into an empty building. They have a fantastically passionate fuck against a wall and then part ways.
She is still in the afterglow when she puts her habit back on. She becomes more directive and actually gets Dr. Poirret fired by indicating his age is interfering with his treatment. Guilt overcomes her once again so she turns to the needle for a pick me up. Instead, she begins having bloody, graphic and insanely disturbing hallucinations. She sees a vision of herself making out with a naked male corpse as a man who in reality was trying to help her get bludgeoned. He’s thrown out the window and Mathieu who appears in the window says it was a suicide. It isn’t clear who the murderer is and despite the myriad of horrific things that Gertrude did, killing may not be one of them.
Whatever the case, Mathieu jumps in like a champ and is ready to cover up the whole thing. I want these two crazy nuns to just get together and forget all the bad at the hospital. Trade in the heroin for some THC, leave the church and be happy.
Gertrude becomes convinced that she’s a killer and is inconsolable.
During a game, young patient Peter (Lou Castel) who is on crutches dare asks Gertrude why she killed the man. She’s hurt by the accusation, but her reaction has the patients convinced even more of her guilt.
Later, Gertrude sees an old man in a wheelchair getting his rocks off with a patient named Florence (Ileana Fraia). Gertrude is angry at the romp and then immediately afterwards the man is killed.
When Gertrude wakes up frightened, Mathieu tries to be nice. Gertrude isn’t having it. She goes a little dominatrix with Mathieu and tells her if she wants to be with her, she must wear stockings and call herself a dirty little prostitute. Gertrude may not be the best girlfriend material, but even when dishing out orders she looks and sounds magnificent.
Dr. Poirret’s replacement, the young Dr. Patrick Roland (Joe Dallesandro) grows suspicious of Gertrude. He goes to the hospital director (Daniele Dublino) to go over his concerns. While he’s talking about it, another patient is being executed via acupuncture-style torture with a straight razor thrown in for good measure.
Roland is ready to go to the police, but Matheiu puts on the crazy vamp charm to keep him quiet. I want to blame Roland, but Matheiu has some power of persuasion that is in-fucking-credible. Not to mention, the whole nun thing she’s got going on works in her favor marvelously.
The killer is revealed at the end and though it’s no surprise the motive is kind of cool and the last visual is a haunting one.
This ranks very high among my favorite sexploitation films. It’s filled with tough, beautiful, crazy women and it has a bunch of awesomely fun and excellently directed sex scenes. The male companions are good looking. Though there isn’t too much contact between the female leads, their scenes together are electric.
Anita Ekberg gives one of the best performances in horror history. There is no reason that Gertrude should remain sympathetic after the false teeth episode.That should have made her a villain. It is only the torment that Ekberg showed Gertrude was putting herself thru that keeps the viewers on her side.
Morra is phenomenal as the devoted sex kitten groupie. Mathieu is fantastic because she is a shy well-behaved nun by day and a coy and sexually rousing gal-pal by night. She is such a great character. There’s an idealistic optimism about her, but obviously something lurks beneath the surface of it all. Her multifaceted nature is conveyed fabulously which makes the revelations about her character an understandable evolution.
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While picking out snapshots for this review, I was listening to this song and it fits perfectly. Off topic, the Pet Shop Boys are wonderful and if you don’t like them, you’re a bad person.
Scared Stiff Rating: 8.5/10
