 |
 |
|
|
 |
 |
HOLY TERROR
Produced by Massimiliano "Max" Cherchi and Michael Brazier
Directed by Massimiliano "Max" Cherchi
Written by Fratelli DeNottei
Edited by Lou Vockell
Director of Photography - Paul SteeleThe Nun - Katy Moses
Julie - Beverly Lynn
David - Charlie Lubiniecki
Kane Archer - Michael BrazierA week or so ago I had the displeasure of watching my first Italian Possessed Nun movie, DEMONIA. Viewing Lucio Fulci's cinematic atrocity is something akin to going Bunuel on your eyeballs with a dull straight razor and then jumping into a vat or salted lemon juice where a 90 year old toothless hag tries to gum your johnson off.
In other words, not fun.
DEMONIA is the kind of movie that makes one give up on Possessed Nun flicks altogether, not that I've seen that many. Heck, the only other Possessed Nun movie that comes to mind is THE CONVENT, an American production whose only saving grace was Coolio's pipecleaner hairdo. There's something about long, pointy things jutting out of people heads that gets me every time. Anyone remember the music video where Coolio was on the tricycle bobbing his pipecleaners up and down?
Comedic genius I tell you.
Between DEMONIA and THE CONVENT, I figured I'd seen all the Possessed Nun sub-genre has to offer. I mean seriously, how many times can you watch the poor girls getting raped or dancing around in Rastafarian day-glo blood before you just have to say "enough is enough?" Does anyone really find raped or possessed nuns erotic? The sub-genre is a sickening amalgam of taboos designed to appeal to the worst kind of fetishists out there. Perhaps if the filmmakers approached the material differently there might be some sort of emotional resonance akin to the brutally ugly nun rape in Abel Ferrera's BAD LIEUTENANT.
Instead we get nun porn.
Yuk!
And then there's Max Cherchi's HOLY TERROR, a movie with all the fetish elements removed because he can't afford to include them.
If you're seen a Max Cherchi release, you know the man is a true auteur, like Hitchcock, he makes the same movie over and over with different levels of complexity. In all honesty, where Hitch's movies became more layered and complex as his career went along, Max's movies are progressing in the wrong direction.
Like HELLINGER and CARNAGE ROAD before, HOLY TERROR finds a costumed baddie on the prowl knocking off attractive twenty-somethings. HELLINGER has a nice back story regarding child abuse and well-rounded characters dealing with political corruption and a serial rapist. CARNAGE ROAD chopped the back story and character development down to a minimum and the result was a tight little HILLS HAVE EYES knock-off. HOLY TERROR does away with all back story as well as all character and plot development. Viewers are left with what amounts to half a movie.
And at 50 minutes, I ain't kidding.
Julie and David rent a home from the Possessed Nun's Renfield named Kane Archer (sounds like a Bond villain). They get busy, have some Nun dreams, and then party with their nympho pals. During that party, the Possessed Nun knocks everybody off. That's it. Nothing more, nothing less. The movie could have been a perverse, blood-drenched uber-shocker that appeals to Fulci-inspired horror fanatics, if there was actually a movie to describe as such.
To his credit, Max is able to pump as much sleaze into his 50 minutes thanks to the terminally gorgeous Beverly Lynn who spends about half her scenes naked. The rest of the cast isn't nearly as likeable, or as naked. Playing the husband, David, Charlie Lubiniecki comes across as an attention starved Nancy-boy with a bad Flock of Seagulls haircut. If he has just worn his hair Coolio-style I might have at least been able to laugh at him.. Whatever chemistry the two might have possessed is totally lost due to Lubiniecki's inability to deliver his lines convincingly.
Word to the wise: the ability to over-emote with rubbery facial expressions does not an actor make.
Max almost allows the movie to truly cross over into warped nunsploitation during the big party scene as all the drunk guests start swapping sex partners, but for some reason Max never follows through. Just when things get interesting, the movie falls apart and the Possessed Nun rears her fugly head. During a movie like THE CONVENT, this is when all the day-glo blood would start flying, but HOLY TERROR is pretty bloodless. Outside of a tediously long shower scene and an amusing vomit gag, there just ain't much red stuff.
Wait, how can a shower scene be tediously long?
HOLY TERROR is the kind of horror opus that leaves audiences wanting more, not because the movie is so good, but because there's so little of it. To the movie's credit, the short running time makes it a far cry better than DEMONIA.