School of the Holy Beast

My lone previous foray into the world of nunsploitation films, The Sinful Nuns of St. Valentine, was moderately entertaining, but really didn’t go far enough into the shocking and taboo-shattering stuff that one could presume would be featured in a genre whose sole purpose is to be all blasphemous and show nuns kinking it up bigtime. I guess I should thank the Japanese the next time I meet one then, because this movie is every bit as wonderfully perverse as you could ask for from such a film.

The plot at first feels like the standard “righteous individual infiltrates cult to expose it” story, with young Maya joining the Sacred Heart Convent in an effort to find out what happened to her mother there that lead to her death. What really works nicely, though, is the slow discovery that Maya is every bit as crazy as the people she’s investigating. Her chosen method of revenge against the people who wronged her mother is, shall we say, different (I would never reveal it here, but damn, it was a little messed up).

Along the way, of course, we are treated to all the things one could hope for in a movie about lustful nuns, including lots of whippings, lesbianism, rape, a dirty priest, and so on and so on. I’m not sure why naughty nuns are so hot to me, it’s not like I went to Catholic school or anything to really develop any kind of love-hate relationship with them. One thing I think I can say with some certainty, though, is that between this and Ilsa I’ve been opening up about my own weird fetishes way too much with all of you this week. Just accept that this is a good movie, if you’re into this type of thing, or think you might be, and we’ll all call it an overly uncomfortable, needlessly revelatory day, shall we?

Rating: *** ½