Images in a Convent or Immagini di un convento (1979) is a standard Italian-issue soft-porn exploitation flick, which is another way of saying, it is cheesy and dull. It (barely) aspires to artistic heights with a decent location (secluded convent and church in the hills), photography (sudden close ups, occasional jump cuts), and original score (a mind-numbing repetition of two themes, both involving wispy women’s voices enhanced by 1970s synthesizer groans and blips). But then, all the efforts at rendering this story “artistic” are just play-pretend, dressing up an otherwise straightforward porno so that it might have an audience a bit larger than the raincoat crowd. But with rote sex scenes between actors clearly not “into it” and shot without much imagination, the film should not only disappoint erotic art buffs, but the raincoat crowd (nowadays, anyone at home who wants to get turned on) as well.

One thing distinguishing this genre picture (apparently the king, or queen of nunsploitation cinema), is that it does veer now and again into hardcore territory. With famed horror, hardcore and erotic film director Joe D’Amato at the helm, one can be sure of the deliberate blurring of hard- and soft-core boundaries. Unlike some of his most extreme pictures, hinted at on the DVD extras, and involving cannibalism, mutilation, and torture, Images in a Convent is more fetishistic than anything. It revels in the age old shock value of nuns getting it on with each other and with men (either priests or outsiders), a theme at least as old as the famous 14th Century instances in Chaucer and Boccaccio. But does anyone really get excited by such imagery any more? I suppose the answer is firmly Yes, especially those (I’d imagine) raised in the world of Catholic suppression of earthly desire. The least one can say about the film is it succeeds in its blasphemous intentions.

The story, if you could call it as such, boils down to two new arrivals in a peaceful convent in the hills of an Italian village, set apart from the world by a forbidding forest populated (of course) by brigands. The first is a haughty countess, Isabella (buxom Paola Senatore), who has been forced into the convent by her father to keep her away from her uncle. I couldn’t determine whether the uncle has incestuous plans, or was just a bad influence; either way, once Isabella is confined within the convent walls, she is hell-bent (so to speak) on getting out and joining her uncle. The other arrival in the convent is a longhaired, pirate-shirted artist named Guido, the kind of man who graces romance novel covers, except the actor who plays him has an extremely hairy chest and pair of legs. Guido has been wounded by aforementioned brigands, and the kindly Mother Superior takes him in, against the urging of everyone else.

Guido is set apart from the ladies, but Isabella gets it into her head (not having met him) that he might be able to help her escape. She devises a bizarre plan to seduce and blackmail nuns in order to get information to him, and to ensure that he will agree to meet her. For his part, he is eager to screw anyone who comes near him (see, he’s a rogue and a libertine). Result: between the combined seductions of Guido and Isabella, and with the mysterious powers of a demonic pair of statues on the property thrown in, all the nuns and their superiors succumb one by one to inexorable temptation. By temptation, I mean there is a lot of explicit oral sex, coupled with a wood dildo, finger penetration, licking, and whipping (which leads to more licking, as the inflictor of discipline quickly falls pray herself to temptation as well).

Near the end, (Spoiler Alert?) there is an admittedly shocking (as in unexpected for this genre) and quite explicit scene, with two forest brigands raping a nun in the woods. The oral side of the rape is explicit, the entire scene easily the most gruesome and disturbing of the film (a vision of Guido’s hairy chest and legs, a distant second). The film concludes with a lengthy and rather comical, nay ironic, scene in which a priest attempts (very much in vain) to exorcise the demons haunting the convent. As he walks solemnly down the corridors sprinkling holy water door to door, the nuns spill out one by one, frigging themselves in an onanistic frenzy. They also surround and go down on the angered priest. After mutually-seducing and bedding one another, Isabella inexplicably stabs Guido in the crotch area (off camera, though we can assume he is castrated). Cut to the 472nd shot of the smiling Pan-god statue. The End. (End Dubious Spoiler Alert).

And so we come to the question broached by my title: Why would nuns have breast implants, shaved pubic areas ready for the beach, smoking hot bodies and make-up, and in one case, the scar from a C-section? The answer is so simple: we are in the cheesy world of exploitation king Joe D’Amato. Knock yourself out (or up, or down) if anything above sounded appealing. Otherwise, perhaps consider giving to your local police athletic league, visiting a retirement home, or volunteering at a soup kitchen.


A Note on DVD Extras, Film Stock and Language: Images in a Convent is in Italian with easy to read English subtitles. Sound is not always in sync with dialogue. The image (due to original cheap film stock) is grainy, with a halo of light surrounding everything (possibly due to lens filters, or the innate luminescence of nuns). The first disc (apart from the film) has a few trailers, several of which are for other Joe D’Amato films (e.g. Porn Holocaust) clearly more explicit and violent than the feature. An additional disc includes a long documentary entitled Joe D’Amato: Totally Uncut!. Therein, one can be treated to the director (not long before his death in 1999) talking of how most of his choices in filmmaking were made for money above all else. Clips from many other D’Amato films (including one bit suggestive of a snuff film which got the director in a lot of trouble) adorn the documentary. Eventually, one learns, he gave up the pretense of story and came to embrace hardcore at its cheapest and quickest turnover, having fallen as it were from the heady days and “heights” of his putative masterpiece, Images in a Convent.

As always in such cases, images speak louder than words. For a few stills from the film, visit the link below, but note that some images are hardcore and thus not for those under 18:
http://www.nunsploitation.net/movies/images4.html

This review is an entry to the Erotic Movie Write-Off by ChrisJarmick. Chris invites us to write about our favorite erotic films or scenes; in that regard, this entry breaks the rules, as I found the film more tedious than anything. Nevertheless, it is of the erotic genre, and surely some souls out there count Images in a Convent a treasure in their nunsploitation collections.

Recommended:
No

Viewing Format: DVD