Despite their obvious sexploitation potential, the "nunsploitation" films actually started out as more or less serious and even somewhat historically accurate dramas criticizing the Church. The original film that started it all, "The Nun of Monza" (which I've yet to see) is in this vein, as is the early 70's loose trilogy of Italian nun films--"Story of a Cloistered Nun", "The Nuns of St. Archangel", and "The Sinful Nuns of St. Valentines"--and also perhaps the best of all of these films, "Flavia, the Heretic". The mid-70's though saw the influence of "The Exorcist" and these films began to delve into not-so-historically-accurate satanic themes and completely over-the-top hallucinatory delerium typified by Jess Franco's "Love Letters from a Portugese Nun", the two Mexican nun films--"Satanic Pandemonium" and "Alucarda", not to mention the rather incoherent films of hack Bruno Mattei, "The Other Hell" and "The True Story of the Nun of Monza". Then there were the flat-out, almost completely plot-less lesbian sex romps like Walerian Browzyx's "Behind Convent Walls" as well as just plain weird stuff like the giallo/"nunsploitation" hybrid "Killer Nun". Sleazemaster Joe d'Amato had earlier directed "Images in a Convent", which manages to combine the latter two strains (hallucinatory satanism AND a plot less sex romp) so it's interesting here he decided to go all the way back to the beginning and make a fairly historical drama based on a novel by Denis Diderot no less.
The story involves a young girl (Eva Grimaldi) who is confined to a convent after her lustful father tries to rape her. She becomes a favorite of the Mother Superior and a potential lover of the young father-confessor, but falls prey to the machinations of another ambitious nun (Karin Weil) who is plotting to take over the convent. The supporting cast meanwhile includes Gabriel Tinti (Mr. Laura Gemser)as the monsignor and Jessica Moore (from D'Amato's "11 Days and 11 Nights"). There's nudity aplenty courtesy of Weil, Moore, and (especially) Grimaldi, but D'Amato seems, uncharacteristically, much more interested in serious drama than softcore porn.
The problem is, with the exception of the underrated Tinti, D'Amato is saddled here with softcore porn star cast who don't pull off serious drama very well. Grimaldi is especially unconvincing as an innocent virgin (a role earlier assayed by much stronger actresses like Eleanora Giorgi, Ornella Muti, and Jenny Tamburi). The role perhaps should have been played by Jessica Moore, but she was not really a great actress either (and besides, even at eighteen here, she had a body like Jessica RABBIT and wouldn't have very convincing PLAYING an eighteen-year-old). That's not to say this movie is in any way bad, but it is odd that D'Amato would go so much in the way of serious drama with THIS cast, who were really built for a flat-out sex romp.
