Nun, The
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Now when THE NUN crossed my desk, I was all excited. I am a huge fan of nunsploitation. Am I the only one that thinks that a dirty, naughty, good looking nun is hot? Anyways, what I find out is this movie is not about kinky nuns, but a killer dead nun, that is made of water. Ummm, sure. Holy water at least? Not really. Faucet water or any other kind that seems to be around. Hell, even toilet water in the film.

Now the idea of a killer nun made of water sounds dumb to me, but here it came off as brilliantly creepy as hell. The story begins with some Catholic school girls acting up in class. In comes your typical crazy strict nun, and seeing a woman hiding a love letter, forces her to eat the paper. She then proceeds to turn demonic. Wait! It was all a dream. Good thing. I think I peed a little.

We flash to a dance where Eva (the cute Anita Briem) is at a dance, with best friend Julia (Belen Blanco) and Joel (the sad attempt of levity in the story). This follows with numerous situations with Joel filming the dance. No reason for this. In fact he has the little camera with him all through the movie. Damn that camera!

Finally the movie can really start, when Eva comes home to find a floating nun slicing her mother’s throat. Once Eva sees this, the nun splashes through the window. Eva is distraught of course, and at the funeral meets one of her mother’s friends that has something very important to tell her. It turns out that her mother was meeting up with some friends in Spain. They all attended a Catholic girls school long ago. Something deeper is going on here with her mother’s death. Unfortunately Eva doesn’t get much knowledge from her mother’s friend while heading to meet at her hotel. Her mother’s friend had a visit with the watery nun, in a truly great creepy fashion that leads to a wonderful gore money shot. Off to Spain Eva goes with her friends to solve this mystery, where she meets Gabriel, the priest in training. He cares for her, so he tags along. As the mystery unravels, and more people are dying, we find out who the nun is, and why the people are dying.

I enjoyed THE NUN. The cinematography was top notch, along with a great score. I also have to give very high props to the effects team, with bringing one hell of a show. The water effects were top of the line, and the watery nun, floating in air, was flawless. Great job to all.

On the down side I do have to complain a little about some of the dialogue. I can’t really ding much on the acting, because the dialogue was so bad that they may all be Oscar worthy normally when not spouting some of these awful lines. Another disappointment was how deep the story, and back story really went. Instead of just a quick glimpse, or realization, about who the nun is, and why she is killing, it becomes way too complicated until it all comes crashing down in plot holes. The ending reminded me a bit of an attempt at SESSION 9, but made little sense thinking back on THE NUN. If that is what really happened, then much of the “mystery” that I sat through was pointless dialogue, and slow pacing. When the ending happened, and the credits rolled, I just sat back and all I could say was, “No. Nice try, but no.”

The first half of the film has some great deaths, and suspense, while the last half is more about wrapping the mystery up, while still throwing a curve ball ending. The two halves do not work flawlessly together, but this movie had enough going for it for me to recommend a rent at the very least. I was very impressed and director Luis De La Madrid and writer Jaume Balaguero have given us a pretty damn inventive killer that was fun to watch…even if this nun wasn’t kinky.

Added:  Tuesday, February 28, 2006

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