April 19, 2008
Japan has a small but strong Catholic population, mostly centered around the city of Nagasaki. As a seaport, missionaries first arrived in Japan there and many stayed to do their evangelical work with great success. Also, as a seaport with strategic military value, Nagasaki was selected as a target for an atomic bomb in World War II. The bomb devastated one of the few areas of Japan with real ties to the western world.
Nunsploitation movies sometimes aspired to more than casual nudity and sex while bashing the Catholic Church. The best of the group tell interesting stories that are set in a religious context. Tragic lives, murders most mysterious and the exploration of religious fervor as compared to mental instability make for a movie that's more than sacrilege for sacrilege's sake. The truth can be even more sad and terrible than lurid fiction.
In 1963, Jeanine Deckers recorded an album in which one song, Dominique rose to number one on the US charts. She was better known as The Singing Nun, and was played by Debbie Reynolds in a movie of the same name. I still remember how the movie ended, with a long elevated pull-away shot of her riding away in a jeep, to live happily ever after. One assumed.
Reality was much less kind. Jeanine Decker left the order a few years after recording her first album. Despite donating almost all of the profits from her music to the Dominicans, the Belgian government decided that she owed back taxes. Unable to overcome the resultant financial difficulties, she committed suicide with her long-time lesbian partner and they were buried together.
Like I said, I have managed to collect a few exceptionally powerful examples of nunsploitation films. I'll review them in the coming months, and hopefully I can convince you that the genre is more than just "Nuns Gone Wild".
Posted by: Ted at
11:07 AM | category: Cult Flicks
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D April 17, 2008
The humans aren't pushovers and use most everything at hand as weapons. The aliens are all too... human, I guess, especially when they do something clumsy or stupid. It's an even match.
If you can deal with the gruesome amounts of blood, then I heartily recommend this one. It's going on my "to buy" list.
Posted by: Ted at
08:48 PM | category: Cult Flicks
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April 10, 2008
Hatchet - This movie bills itself as "Old School American Horror". More correctly, this is a flick that presents nothing new or original. I'm not saying that it's a bad movie, because it's well made, well acted, and there's plenty of blood, gore and gruesomely realistic special effects. If you're a fan of slashers, you'll certainly enjoy this one. You'll also be happy to hear that they've left it wide open to make Victor Crowley the next Michael Myers (Halloween), Jason Vorhees (Friday the 13th) and Freddie Krueger (Nightmare on Elm Street).
Spiral - This is a nifty little thriller. Here, Joel Moore plays Mason, a young man and aspiring artist who can barely function in society. He manages, thanks to near-OCD routine and frequent help from his only friend, who also happens to be his boss. He meets a girl and she begins to draw him out of his shell until it becomes clear that his personal quirks run far deeper and darker than anyone suspected. Chock full o' suspense and dread, this is well worth a rental.
Posted by: Ted at
01:30 PM | category: Cult Flicks
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April 07, 2008
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Cruze: Professor, what do you make of all this? There's nothing but women!Professor: Perhaps this is a civilization that exists without sex.
Turner: You call that civilization?
Professor: Frankly, no.
Posted by: Ted at
02:45 PM | category: Cult Flicks
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April 06, 2008
Posted by: Ted at
08:43 AM | category: Cult Flicks
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