"Nurse Sherri" is proof positive that even a hack genre filmmaker like Al Adamson can still have it in them to produce something interesting and worthwhile. Compared to much of his output, this is actually pretty good. The acting (some of it, anyway) and the script (by Michael Bockman and Greg Tittinger, who also edited the picture) are above average. Dare I say it...Adamson crafts some striking and memorable horror here, especially the scene in the foundry.
The film is still rather crude if you put it up against slicker, more mainstream horror, and the animation effect is primitive, but this viewer still has a good time with this one.
Jill Jacobson plays the title role, who was present for an operation performed on a cult leader / necromancer named Reanhauer (Bill Roy). The trouble is, this was an operation that the patient did NOT authorize himself, so when he dies, his angry, vengeful spirit comes to rest inside Sherri, and compels her to murder the doctors who were involved. Sherri's lover (Geoffrey Land) and two of her co-workers (Marilyn Joi, Katherine Pass) all try to do something to reverse this possession.
There is some stiff and awkward acting, but the actors and their characters are engaging nevertheless, especially lovely exploitation veteran Joi, whose nurse lusts after star football player Marcus Washington (Prentiss Moulden), who was blinded in a car accident. Although quite serious overall, there is time for levity as Pass demonstrates a very sexy bedside manner to a male patient. Jacobson isn't really given enough to work with to make her character all that sympathetic, however. It's the devilishly good Roy who manages to steal the show, although J.C. Wells gives him some competition as a follower who is terrorized by the dead mans' spirit. John F. Goff, another prolific actor in exploitation features of the time, does a fine job as a psychiatrist.
It appears that the music used is stock music, but it's wonderfully theatrical schlock horror movie music that suits the material. And Adamsons' filmmaking may not be that slick, but it's clear that after a decade or so in the business, he'd honed his craft to some degree.
Good fun, for undemanding genre fans.
Also available in an 85 minute alternate version which puts the accent on sex rather than horror.
Seven out of 10.
