Immagini di un convento

A young woman (Paloa Senatore), who is involved in an incestuous affair with her uncle, is sent to a convent and quickly realizes it is a hotbed of carnal lust. While she is sleeping her first night and having an erotic dream about her a uncle, another young nun comes in and performs oral sex on her! Then the young nun is caught coming out of her room by the Mother Superior, who takes her off to another room and whips her (naked, of course), which leads to yet another lesbian scene. And this is BEFORE they all get possessed by Satan! The satanic possession involves a creepy statue of a grinning satyr and a mysterious injured man they let convalesce in the convent (and his idea of convalescing is to screw all the nubile initiates and try to do the same to the Mother Superior). Too late, the church tries to intervene.

This is kind of a supernatural "Exorcist"-influenced "nunsploitation" movie, perhaps closer to insane Mexican nun films like "Alucarda" and "Satanic Pandemonium" or Jess Franco's off-the-wall version of "Love Letters of a Portugese Nun" than it is to the earlier more serious Italian nun films. It's also a Joe D'Amato film, so it has great cinematography, even better music, and, of course, a WHOLE lot of sleazy sex. There might actually be TOO MUCH sex. (I like sex in movies the same way I like salt on my food, but D'Amato has a way of taking the top of the salt shaker and just pouring the whole thing on). There's even a brief hardcore sequence,which is not that graphic, but it's a rape sequence where one nun (Marina Hedman) is accosted by randy highwaymen. This scene is potentially offensive,but only if you can buy hardcore porn star Hedman (who looks like fifty miles of rough road) as an innocent virgin.

Paola Senatore is prettier and a much better actress than Hedman (she too did one hardcore film some years later when she was allegedly hooked on heroin in real life and several months pregnant--but even I'm not depraved enough to want to see that). She has a rebellious and particularly ambiguous character, who might or might not be in league with the satanic forces. The satanic forces themselves are pretty ambiguous (it could just be the group hysteria of the nuns). But in the end D'Amato goes for the sleazy nun sex and doesn't delve too much into this. This could have been better, but it's OK guess

Images in a Convent tries really hard to be this deep, contemplative piece about faith, sexuality, and repression within convent walls, but it mostly just comes across as slow and self-important. The cinematography has some genuinely beautiful moments, all soft lighting and careful compositions that make the religious setting feel appropriately austere and mysterious. You can tell the director had some real artistic vision here, but the execution just doesn't quite live up to the ambition.

The pacing drags something fierce, and while I get that it's supposed to be meditative, there's a difference between thoughtful silence and just plain boring stretches where nothing much happens. The performances are fine enough, but the whole thing feels like it's trying too hard to be profound without actually having much profound to say. It's the kind of European art film that makes you feel like you should appreciate it more than you actually do.

During the 70's sleazy cycle numerous short lived sub-genres popped up to turn heads and enrage moralists every where. None were quite as offensive as nunsploitation and no nunsploitation was as trashy as this.

At a convent in Italy, a man arrives and the nuns begin feeling urges against their calling. It soon becomes clear that the devil has come and the nuns are under his control.

Though the plot suggests some exorcist-style horror, the film plays out much more like a quiet drama. A drama that includes oodles of explicit sexual activity. As the nuns fall into depravity the sexual stakes begin to rise. Of the assorted sored acts, viewers get to see some whippings, rape, oral sex, masturbation, hetero and homo couplings.

For a D'amato flick, it's surprisingly well made. Camera angles, lighting, pacing are all fairly good. Even the scripting and acting are better than the norm. So well is it made that I find myself wishing that all D'amato flicks looked this quality.

On a side note, it's interesting that with the exception of a short fellatio bit the hetero scenes are strictly soft-core while the lesbian scenes are fully explicit.

A well constructed piece of erotica, if one can get past the sacrilegious content.

7/10

(1979) Images In A Convent/ Immagini di un convento (In Italian with English Subtitles) ADULT DRAMA

Adapted from the novel "La religieuse" by Denis Diderot, cinematography, co-written and directed by Joe D'Amato that has countess of Lignate, Isabela (Paola Senatore) brought to the monastery of nuns so that she can be converted. In charge of converting her is Mother superior, Sister Angela (Nana Aslanoglu). And it is not long before Isabela infects other nuns with perverted thoughts beginning with Sister Licinia (Marina Ambrosini) after she hears Isabella chanting out her uncle's name while lying on her bed, touching herself. She would barge in before she makes out with her. And when Sister Marta (Marina Hadman Bellis) notices this, and Licinia pleads her to punish her. She does this by whipping her while she is fully named other than the stockings and the head gear she has on before she too seduces her.

All of this is just an excuse to showcase many of the big breasted women to put in some compromising positions to which none of them are really that old- full frontal and back and front. I must admit there were times I was a little aroused to see that many beautiful women. All they had to do was remove the devil statue to another location and then problem solved. Like, what is a devil statue doing in a convent of nuns in the first place.

This is a well shot, good looking erotic outing from Mr D'Amato making full use of his convent setting and realistic looking nun costumerie. There is a good old mix here of sex action, mainly but not exclusively girl on girl. Pretty explicit and suddenly, surprisingly hardcore for, of all things, the double rape in the woods. A story of sorts but this is really much as you would expect from nunsploitation but with just a bit more style and variation than usual. Slows just a tiny bit when the wizened little 'man of God' turns up to exorcise the place but we are soon storming to a super finale as the poor man walks the corridors splashing his holy water whilst the girls are inside their rooms making their own little splashes. In fact so carried away do they get that they are soon chasing after the little chap in various stages of undress eager to get him stripped off, God or no God!