LET US PRAY

Three prime examples of the short-lived nunsploitation sub-genre that closed the gap between soft porn and horror in the mid-70s, riding on the success of Ken Russell's frankly barmy THE DEVILS (long overdue for an official DVD release itself).

First up is Sergio Grieco's THE SINFUL NUNS OF SAINT VALENTINE (a.k.a. LE SCOMUNICATE DI SAN VALENTINO.

Senor Esteban (Paulo Malco, THE NEW YORK RIPPER) is chased through woodlands one afternoon by an angry mob on horseback. They shoot him from his horse but he manages to fend them off and stagger back to his nearby village where he finds sanctuary in his friend Joaquin's house.

Esteban insists he needs his forbidden love Lucita (Jenny Tamburi, WOMEN IN CELL BLOCK 7) at his side to help him heal. Joaquin agrees to sneak into the convent where she is confined, and bring her to Esteban.

Back at Joaquin's, Esteban tells Lucita that it was the Inquisition who shot him. He claims they received an anonymous tip-off accusing him of heresy and of killing a local bishop.

Esteban tells Lucita he believes the real reason for the persecution is because of the social divide between the lovestruck pair - frowned upon by society. He may not be far wrong: upon her return to the convent, Lucita finds a slut in her bed who empathises with our heroine, saying she too has been sent to the convent to prevent her from marrying a man of differing breeding. The pair comfort each other in typical nunsploitation manner ...

As Esteban's wounds heal and the Inquisition's hunt for him closes in, he makes plans to escape with Lucita and make a new life for them somewhere where they can be free together.

Unfortunately, eluding the Inquisition is not their only problem. We soon discover that the convent is a sadistic place ran by a sex-crazed abbess (Francoise Prevost, SPIRITS OF THE DEAD). This isn't too great a concern for the quiet Lucita until a nun is found murdered in the convent and Lucita is the prime suspect.

Tortured (topless, of course) repeatedly by the clergy in an effort to drag a confession from her, Lucita remains robust, spurred on by the belief that Esteban will come to her rescue. But ... can he?

VALENTINE is a well-shot film, making great use of the scenic Italian locations, photographic old buildings and sunny weather. The convent is well designed, giving it an authentic sense of being cold, clinical and foreboding. The overall effect is that VALENTINE has an atmosphere of grubbiness and realism seen in few films of this ilk.

Performances are mostly forgettable, although the lead couple do manage to illicit sympathy from the viewer. In fact, the biggest flaw in VALENTINE is that it fails to deliver on the usual nunsploitation promises of sex and violence. Yes, there's blasphemy and hypocrisy. Yes, there's whippings and torture. Yes, there's lesbianism and breasts. But it all feels strangely muted, as if Grieco (BEAST WITH A GUN) had no real desire in filming it. He holds back.

It may be that he wanted his film, loosely based on "The Devils of Loudon", to be taken seriously as a historical document. And efforts in the production design do suggest this, making it a partial success.

But filming on a low budget in the mid-70s, funded no doubt thanks to the box office appeal of THE DEVILS, at the height of the nunsploitation cycle ... you'd have thought the boundaries would have been pushed a little.

Still, VALENTINE is an above average (albeit tame) addition to the genre.

Next up is Christopher Boger's MARQUIS DE SADE'S JUSTINE (a.k.a. CRUEL PASSION; DE SADE'S JUSTINE; AMORI VIZI E DEPRAVAZIONI DI JUSTINE) which is set in a convent school, where two young female students are about to learn that life is cruel.

The young Justine (Koo Stark, THE AWAKENING OF EMILY) and her sister Juliette (Lydia Lisle, THE ELEPHANT MAN) are distraught to find their recently deceased parents being laid to rest outside of the local graveyard. The priest explains that he will not bury their bodies on holy ground, as their father committed mortal sin then hung himself. A nun at the graveside offers little consolation to the girls when she suggests their folks will "burn in hellfire".

From a pretty bad beginning, things just get worse for Justine and her older sibling. They are summoned the morning after to see the pastor. He informs them that their parents' deaths has left them penniless, and that the school can not fund their stay any longer - they must leave the premises by the following morning. The Mother Superior leans over to a weeping Justine and suggests they may be able to sort something out by then.

That night, while Juliette indulges her lesbian cravings with a fellow student, Justine is accosted by the horny Mother Superior. Hearing her sister's screams, Juliette races to Justine's aide and saves her moments from rape.

Come daylight, the pair are thrown out of the school with just £40 life savings between them. Juliette's plan is to take them to London, where they will meet up with their Aunty and work in a brothel - liberating their bodies and learning the art of satisfying men in preparation for marriage.

This suits Juliette's promiscuous nature to a tee, but Justine is much more intent on maintaining her virginity and flees back to the school where the lecherous pastor (Louis Ife, ONE FOR THE POT) has said his door would always be open for her ...

Back in the small village where her troubles all began, things just get worse for Justine ...

Lush countryside photography and reserved performances keep JUSTINE from descending into the grubbiness of its European nunsploitation counterparts. That's not to say the film doesn't provide it's fair share of gratuitous nudity, blasphemous imagery and explicit violence (the end, in particular, is unexpectedly disturbing).

But Boger seems to be genuinely interested in the human side of the story, and also the politics of not only Christianity but of young women and their rights/desires to be liberated.

Stark is excellent in the lead role, believably vulnerable yet simmering with restrained sexuality throughout. And gorgeous in her youth too, of course.

The film's biggest pitfalls are it's languid pace, and the script - which is full of De Sade philosophies such as "modesty is the first step to corruption" and so on. It all gets a bit forced in the script department, unfortunately.

Finally, we come to Nigel Wingrove's SACRED FLESH.

After some very stylish opening credits (designed by Jake West, RAZORBLADE SMILE), we learn that Sister Elizabeth is the acting Mother Superior of a convent in the south of England. A couple of nuns there whisper to each other, and we discover that Elizabeth has been locked in her room for having impure thoughts.

The nuns debate whether Elizabeth has been possessed by the Devil. Unsure of what the cause of her condition may be, they send for Father Henry and his trusty manservant Richard (Moses Rockman, THE THIRD NAME) - who we're first introduced to while he's humping local girl Emily Booth (EVIL ALIENS) up against a tree!

It turns out that Elizabeth has been driven mad by her own conflicted sexual desires, which have been further compounded by listening to the sexual exploits of her fellow nuns during confession. Elizabeth has purgatorial visions where demons and angels try to entice her in separate directions - Eileen Daly (CRADLE OF FEAR) being the standout of the entire film as the voluptuous Repression. Even Mary Magdalene (Kristina Bill, DUPLICITY) turns up to give her thoughts on the sins of the flesh.

Father Henry, meantime, is shocked at first to be greeted with open hostility from the elderly nuns, while Richard seems rather pleased by the amount of young female flesh in the vicinity.

As Elizabeth's madness deepens and her visions become more intense, the whole convent slowly becomes enveloped in a state of sexual delirium - cue lots of lesbianism, female masturbation, phallic crucifixes and so on.

Wingrove directed this after his earlier short VISIONS OF ECSTASY was banned by the BBFC on grounds of blasphemy. Clearly relishing in the publicity, Wingrove tried to upset sensibilities again with this TV movie-type variant on Ken Russell's superior THE DEVILS. He succeeded in many circles, and SACRED FLESH has kept cropping up in upper-class newspaper articles and on stuffy BBC2 culture shows ever since it's inception in 2000.

But is it any good? Well, it has its moments. The photography is pedestrian and the acting is alarmingly theatrical. The script is risible but at least it's kept lean enough to give way to gratuitous sex or nudity at regular intervals. All of which is filmed with impeccable style.

There's plenty of blasphemous images to upset devout Christians here, but to anyone else it's all a bit laughable. Wingrove's naive insistence of "shocking" us with scenes of nuns engaging in lesbian sex is all very schoolboyish. Still, mustn't grumble when the cast are this good-looking ...

All three films are presented uncut.

VALENTINE is presented in a bright and reasonably grain-free non-anamorphic 2.35:1 tranfer. Colours are strong and although some wear and tear is evident (minor specking on occasion), it's a solid presentation overall. The Italian mono soundtrack holds up well at a consistent audible level with no problem of hiss or dropouts. Removable English subtitles are at hand.

JUSTINE looks fine. There's minor grain and a bit of speckling here and there, but overall images are satisfyingly bright and sharp. The back of the cover states the film is presented in 1.78:1, but the disc presents it in 1.33:1. I'm not familiar with the film's origins so can only speculate that the full-frame presentation, which doesn't appear to be compromised in it's photography, is correct. The English mono audio track is loud, clear and consistent throughout.

SACRED FLESH is presented in its original 1.78:1 aspect ratio and has been 16x9 enhanced. The transfer is very solid, with sharp bright images throughout. As you'd expect, the 2.0 English audio is equally good.

Each disc has static menus, including scene-selection menus that allow access to JUSTINE and SACRED FLESH via 6 chapters apiece, and VALENTINE via 9 chapters.

Extras on each disc are as follows:

VALENTINE: an original theatrical trailer (in widescreen and Italian audio but no English subtitles), a gallery of 9 stills, 2 still examples of alternative video art, a director filmography, trailers for BLACK MAGIC RITES and NUDE FOR SATAN, a music video for Redemption act The Nuns' "White Slaves". I think the latter is meant to be sexy - it's actually pretty hilarious.

JUSTINE: a stills gallery offering 24 photographs from the movie, a gallery of promo art, trailers for Redemption best-sellers REQUIEM FOR A VAMPIRE and LES DEMONIAQUES.

SACRED FLESH: a trailer, a 30-second teaser trailer, 8 pages of original storyboards, 5 poster reproductions under the guise of "Publicity Materials", 23 Behind-The-Scenes photographs taken from on the set.

Each film is packaged in it's own individual keepcase and they come house in an attractive outer card casing.

Each film is of interest in it's own right, whether for being an above-average example of the genre, a chance to see Koo Stark getting nasty, or as a benchmark of post-millennium censorship and controversy. Retailing online for around £11 delivered, the set's a bargain for those interested.

Review by Stuart Willis