Convent of Sinners (Joe D'Amato, 1986)

nHere’s a wacky idea, if you don’t want the nuns living in your convent to turn to the soft embraces and gentle caressing that only properly administrated lesbianism can provide, don’t put them in black hold-up stockings. If you do that, you’re just asking for trouble. What’s that? You say the lead nun, the so-called “Mother Superior” who runs the nun joint at the centre of Joe D’Amato’s Convent of Sinners, is a card carrying member of The Cunnilingus for Ladies Club? (The Cunnilingus for Ladies Club: Supplying cunt-based cunnilingus for discerning lesbians since 1569.) Well, I don’t know if she’s a card carrying member, but she definitely digs chicks. How can you tell? You’re kidding, right? She practically throws herself at the convent’s newest nun the first chance she gets. Won’t that make her current girlfriend, a conniving c-nun-t who sees herself as the heir apparent, a tad upset? You better believe it will. It’s this bitter conflict over the ownership of a pair of fully-engorged bee stung lips that is the meat in this nun-tastic stew. Hold up, “nun-tastic”?!? Weren’t the one who just said that you were pretty much finito when it came to nunsploitation films? I would never say anything like that (especially the word “finito”). You totally did. When? In your review for Bruno Mattei’s The Other Hell. Oh, well, who reads my reviews? Really? That many, eh? What can I say? I lied. Besides, if Joe D’Amato (Beyond the Darkness) makes a movie about a reluctant nun with fully-engorged bee stung lips, you bet your bottom dollar that I’m going to watch the living shit out of that movie. And like I said, this one has black hold-up stockings in almost every scene, so, in other words, I had no qualms about ignoring my no nuns allowed rule.

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nThe reason the rule was in place in the first place was because of the fact that I don’t find nuns to be attractive. Um, I don’t think you’re supposed to find nuns attractive, that’s why they’re called nuns. Even the word itself, “nun,” is a turn off. Again, I think you’re missing the point, nuns don’t exist for the benefit of your perverted fantasies.

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nThen why make movies about them? I think it’s an Italian thing. You see, unlike all you godless heathens out there, Italians grow up around nuns. And sometimes these nuns act badly. Which is the reason Italian filmmakers are drawn to the nunspolitation genre; they’re lashing out against the very system that abused them. It sounds like you just pulled that theory out of your ass. You’re right, I have no idea why anyone, let alone a bunch of Italian men, would want to make a movie about nuns. However, in the case Convent of Sinners, I’m sort of glad Joe D’Amato did, as it’s probably the best the genre has to offer.

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nSure, I’ve only seen a handful of nunsploitation films, but Convent of Sinners had more a women in prison feel to it. Instead of a shower scene, they had a mass wash basin scene. Instead of a cruel, sadistic lesbian warden, they had Mother Superior and her toadying henchnun. And instead of a… well, you get the idea. Oh, and the fact that the new nun (or in w.i.p. terms, “the new fish”) constantly feels like she’s a prisoner was the very appealing to me.

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nI don’t know exactly what century this film is supposed to take place in, but I know they didn’t have elastic bands or garter belts back then. Actually, they might have had garter belts, but these nuns definitely didn’t have access to them. What am I babbling about? Well, what I’d like to know is, how did the nuns manage to keep their black stockings up? I’m gonna go out on a limb here and say, they held them up through the power of prayer. Quit joking around. What was holding them up? Okay, maybe they didn’t use the power of prayer; even though I love the idea of keeping one’s stockings up that way. But something was causing them to stay wrapped tightly to their pristine thighs, and I’m not going to rest until I find the answer.

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nIn the meantime, we’re treated to some table-based father-daughter incest. Do the white stockings Maria Susanna Simonin (Eva Grimaldi) wears on the outside represent innocence and purity, and do the black stockings she wears in the convent represent sin and wickedness? I don’t know about that, but there’s nothing pure about being raped by your father on the kitchen table. And, not to mention, having your mother blame you for being raped and punishing you by sending you off to become a nun at a convent run by an unruly dyke.

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nDid they really send her to a convent? Yep, and she’s getting her habit as we speak. Is it normal for new nuns to stand on a table while the other nuns gawk at her as she gets dressed? I guess. How the hell should I know? Either way, Maria Susanna Simonin is reborn as Sister Susanna, the most pillowy-lipped nun ever to don that weird diaper-like underwear they make them wear. I dig the black hold-up stockings, but those panties are an abomination; I get a rash on my taint just thinking about them.

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nYou would think the moment the black robe goes over Sister Susanna’s head would be the last time we’ll being her pert tits for quite some time. Well, think again, sister. The always horny Mother Superior (Aldina Martano) has got her eye on Sister Susanna, much to the chagrin of Sister Teresa (Karin Well), who is clearly jealous of the new nun.

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nAs she’s been shown her cell, Sister Susanna says… Hold on, cell?!? That’s what the nuns call the places where they sleep. Cells are for prisoners. Couldn’t they call them sleeping rooms or restrooms. Or how ’bout this, bedroom. Yeah, bedroom. I like that. It’s a room that contains a bed, hence, bedroom. Anyway, after being shown where to pray and where to sleep, Sister Susanna says she’ll be happy here. Happy, eh? Um, I don’t think so.

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nYou never know, she might like being a nun. I mean, check out that shirtless water boy. On top of shirtless water boys, you get free meals, and, if you happen to have pillowy lips, Mother Superior will tuck you in at night. I’m no expert when it comes to relationships, but won’t Sister Teresa being upset when she finds out Mother Superior is tucking in Sister Susanna at night? How will she find out? You’re obviously new around here, Sister Teresa always knows what’s going on; her talent for lurking around convent hallways is second to none.

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nNow, I’m not sure if Don Moral (Martin Philips), the convent’s father confessor, likes puffy bee-stung lips, but he’s clearly taken with Sister Susanna when Mother Superior introduces him to her.

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nIt’s not like Sister Teresa needed another reason to resent Sister Susanna, but she gets one, nevertheless, when Sister Susanna gives Mother Superior and her fellow sisters an impromptu harpsichord concert. Seething with jealous rage, Sister Teresa seems powerless as she watches her influence with Mother Superior slowly slipping away. “Don’t deprive me of your affection,” she begs Mother Superior at one point. But it does her no good, as Mother Superior has made her choice, and that choice involves groping Sister Susanna a semi-regular basis.

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nDo you think Sister Teresa is going to sit idly by and watch everything she’s worked for turn to shit? If you think she will, it’s obvious you don’t know Sister Teresa; she’s what we like to call in the nun racket a “real go-getter.”

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nYou might have noticed that during the past couple scenes that Mother Superior coughs. Yeah, so, she probably just has a cold. That’s true, but people who cough in the 1600s usually end up dead within a week or two. Oh, I see. How does this help Sister Teresa? Don’t you see, without Mother Superior around to stick up for her, Sister Teresa can destroy Sister Susanna without having worry about the consequences. Won’t the other nuns kick up a fuss? What are you kidding? Sister Teresa has slowly been currying favour with them. For example, she totally didn’t punish Sister Agatha when she caught her molesting a male statue. So, what you’re saying is, she’s turning all the nuns against Sister Susanna? Exactly.

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nDon’t get me wrong, Sister Susanna still has allies in the form of Don Moral and Sister Ursula (Jessica Moore). But, as we’ll soon find out, they’re a pretty feckless lot. In other words, Sister Susanna better watch out. And I mean, like, right now.

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nYou know she’s in trouble when Mother Superior coughs onscreen for a fourth time. Telling her that her skin is soft like marble (“fresh and beautiful”), Mother Superior enjoys Sister Susanna’s body one last time, as she slowly morphs into a bedridden mess.

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nIt starts when Teresa instructs Sister Susanna to scrub the floors, and eventually graduates to poisoning her. Don’t worry, it’s not a lethal dose, just enough to make her foam at that mouth, giving everyone the impression she’s possessed by the Devil. Bursting into her bedroom, er, I mean, cell, Sister Teresa and her goons pussy whip Sister Susanna. They did what? They whipped the area where her pussy lives. You know, the part where… I know where a pussy is, I just never heard the expression “pussy whip” used so literally before.

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nCall me, I guess, sick and twisted, but liked how Eva Grimaldi’s pubic hair poked out of the sides of her nun diaper as she was being pussy whipped. On top of being aesthetically pleasing, it signaled to me that Eva Grimaldi was fully committed to the role. Not that she needed to. I mean, she is, after all, raped by father in the film’s opening scene. Nonetheless, I nodded ever so slightly as the nuns whipped her pussy in her cell, as I knew right then and possibly there that Eva Grimaldi is all right in my book.

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nAfter being subjected to beatings, holy water douches, exorcisms, and an extended stay in the convent’s rat-infested dungeon, you would think Sister Susanna would be ready to give up. Think again. Actually, with no allies left, Sister Susanna is pretty much destitute. However, her defiance exposes the hypocrisy of the other nuns, as everyone around her so determined to protect their place in the church, that they seem to have forgotten what it means to be a Christian. And, at the end day, that’s what I took away from Convent of Sinners. People, no matter how pious they pretend to be, will stop at nothing to advance their own self-centered agenda, even it means destroying a woman with fully-engorged, pillow-like, bee stung lips.

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