Maniac Nurses find Ecstasy

I've been known to enjoy awful films, but even I have my limits: Maniac Nurses Find Ecstasy (released by Lloyd Kaufman's Troma studio, home of many a z-grade crap-fest), is a heavily cut, re-edited and dubbed Belgian porno flick that is so atrocious that even copious amounts of nudity from a bevy of beautiful, lingerie-clad women and the occasional bit of bargain-basement gore cannot stop it from ranking as one of the worst films I have seen.

Once they had finished hacking the XXX action from their original acquisition, the guys at Troma obviously realised that the collection of disparate scenes they were left with didn't make an awful lot of sense. Rather than cutting their losses and binning the mess, they improvised, adding a narration track that appears to have been conceived on the fly (the story about a private clinic run by sadistic women is utter garbage), and using some stock footage to pad out the running time.

When I watch a film featuring exploding heads, severed feet, a man impaled on a gnome, a self-flagellating monk ridden like a horse by a hot brunette, machine gun-toting babes in suspenders, a baby born with an Elvis tattoo (!), and a scorching blonde sadist who likes violent comic books (that look like like they've been drawn by a ten-year-old) AND I'm still struggling to stay awake, then I know I've discovered a genuine stinker.

So this movie is one of my favorites, along with City Lights, Vertigo, and Little Dieter Needs to Fly. It's a perverse amalgam of a rumored Hungarian porn film, set up by Troma to act as an inane and confusing trifle regarding nurses in a random clinic finding random people on random abandoned roads and then randomly torturing them. Of course the acting is non-existent; the movie has no real linear direction; the music is from a low budget box; the dialogue insane and murky.

Yet through the narrator's non-stop ramblings, the viewer can find a sense of amusement resulting from what they experience. Troma didn't alter this in order to add it to their own library as a mounted and highlighting piece. Rather, the studio took Woody Allen's "What's New Tiger Lily?" and played around with the concept, experimenting the same way teenagers would after receiving editing and dubbing equipment.

The aforementioned narrator tries to connect and explain what we see on screen. The problem is, he's watching a different movie. He claims these nurses are sick and twisted, beyond reproach. But in that dour sense, he's wrong. Nurses, /people/, who reach this level of absurdity are going to be kept in an abandoned, desolate "clinic". They're not sick, twisted white trash. They're hyperbolic heroines who are stuck with a bad plot.

For whatever reason, the gardener sees the nurses as bizarre, yet works at the clinic in the middle of nowhere. The true purpose of the gardener in the movie is beyond the scope of this exploratory exercise. Overall he isn't a non-sequitor. His role isn't as philosophical as the Plate O'Shrimp from Repo Man, but it isn't just a reason to cut to randomness. The gardener doesn't provide a moral view, he's in this just as much as the nurses. At least the narrator is an intentional ruse who tries to solemnly explain to the viewer what isn't explained on screen.

As for the post-editing touches such as the swirl, the flashing names, and the score card, Troma includes this only to further push the outlandishness of the movie. Afterall, Sabrina stands in her room with a gun and shoots in a 180 arc, making soft gun noises. The movie was already mind-boggling. As with Terror Firmer: if you're going to try something, why not go all out?

The point is: there is no point. It's a nihilistic take on film, not on "sex-u-ality". Troma steps up to the plate, looks at the critics who say their feature films have no substance, and then swings for the fences with this movie. But it turns out to be a foul ball on a full count. It accounts for nothing in the long run while managing to anabolically load Troma's other films by allowing them to say "Hey, at least it isn't Maniac Nurses"

See this movie. You'll have to get it through an online rental place. Watch it with at least two other people. Only then will you realize that it's a joke by Troma. It's an attempt to show that we all live in a meta-narrative, and the post-modern approach of satirizing film with film exemplifies the point of no return which our modern collective has reached.

I have to wonder how bad this movie was before Troma got its hands on it. I bet Troma is responsible for the overwrought voiceovers and tourist footage of the porn palaces of Paris but this is still one snail-paced piece of exploitation cinema. A lot of time is spent on watching the nurses lounge around in lingerie and walk around the woods in tall boots and cutoffs with Uzis. Some heads explode and feet are sliced off but this movie just doesn't quite cut the Grey Poupon mustard.

This isn't "true" Troma production, Troma probably only distributed it, but it is good example of same of the most bizarre Troma productions. I'm now convinced that Troma's policy is: "You have the most stupid idea for the movie, we will make a serious feature film based on your idea. We are not afraid of the most bizarre ideas, they give us the chance to make another film".

If you want to see something really strange, see this movie. But be prepared for strange experience. I watched entire movie late night fascinated how far they could go. And they really went quite far. Fascinating.

The full title for this film is Maniac Nurses Find Ecstasy and yes do they ever. This film actually started out as a porn flick back in 1990 and now we have only other pantomimed versions available. Although not as graphic as other reviewers have mentioned but none the less quite gory. Not a bad film overall but I would reccommend to watch Bloodsucking Freaks instead. Oh did I forgot to mention that this is the sequel to Bloodsucking Freaks. Check it out.