Friday, January 20, 2012

Strange Killers: The Nun

Can't be any worse than Rottweiler, right?  This a movie that just sounds silly on paper.  A bunch of people are chased around and killed by the ghost of an evil Nun.  Unfortunately, there's even more to make fun of here.  You see, this is essentially a J/K-Horror Film, but made in Spain by a guy from the Philippines.  Confused?  The whole thing just feels like a mish-mash of movies like The Grudge and Ringu.  It's weird, confusing and a bit lazy.  As a bonus, it muddies the issue with a Third Act Plot Twist that just makes the whole thing seem really, really stupid.  Want to see how Yuzna and company made a movie about a killer, ghost nun even sillier?  If so, read on...
The film opens with a Nun going ape-shit on some students and trying to choke one to death.  This scene is interesting, so, of course, it's a dream.
The titular villain shows up eventually and starts off by killing our heroine's mother.  The ghost/killer has a connection to the water.  When you find out the real story, you'll hate these moments.
More random killing of older, middle-aged ladies.  This is a bigger post-menopausal bloodbath when that guy shot up the set of Dallas!
Over forty-minutes in, we stop the random killing and see why the ghost is killing people.  It's because she attacked the girls years ago and they drowned her in the tub.  Oh, that makes perfect sense.
I should mention that our heroes have decided to go back to the Catholic School where it all went down.  Oh and their car broke down and their cell phones don't work.  Why don't you just shoot yourselves and save this lady/ghost some time?
In the finale, our heroine is separated from the remaining group and fights the Nun in the water, since it's weakest there...where it comes from.  Fun fact: Aquaman is weakest in the water too!  Here's the twist though...
The ghost Nun didn't exist.  Our heroine was actually the killer the whole time.  Of course, none of that makes sense, it's actually just presented as a theory and our heroine somehow shot herself with a speargun...backwards.  Oh and the movie just kind of ends.  The End.
Even ghost Nuns deserve better than this.  The whole thing is a poorly-paced mess of a movie that ultimately amounts to nothing.  It has interesting visuals, so I'm sure that it makes a neat trailer.  The problem is that there is just not enough substance behind the visuals.  Never mind that the Third Act just kills the whole experience.  Remember the ending of Monster-a-Go-Go?  That one was awful because it played with reality and taunted you.  Remember the ending of Pan's Labyrinth?  That one was great, because it played with reality in an ambiguous way that didn't insult the audience.  As a side-note, how often do you see these two films compared?  This movie's attempt to 'explain things' is just bad, bad, bad.  As far as the acting goes, it's nothing special for the most part.  The Nun in the flashbacks is nice and intense though.  Overall, the movie turns out be better than Rottweiler and Beyond Re-Animator, while not as inventive as Return of the Living Dead 3.  It is a bit silly in overall execution and that hurts it.  Take us away, ghost Nun in a round-about...
Up next, one final film to talk about and it features C. Thomas Howell.  Can it replace Ants properly?  Stay tuned...

1 comment:

  1. LOL. I watched (most) of this movie and agree with your summary.

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