Nurse Sherri

I first saw this movie at the local drive-in as part of a double bill with "Eyeball" - What a complete laugh-fest! The "acting" and production values are definitely par for the course for Al Adamson (In one scene alone is it daytime or night - or just blue filter over the camera lens? Who cares? Apparently not Mr. Adamson) I had to buy this one as soon as I found a copy and now that it's on DVD, I highly recommend this to any fans of the genre...I think it's Al Adamson's...uhhh...masterpiece (?!) One that truly has to be seen to be believed...

Oh yeah! Jill Jacobson's breasts should have had their own credit in the movie (if you know what I mean) Whatever happened to Jill Jacobson??

The introductory prologue to Nurse Sherri has a small devil-worshipping cult in the desert trying to bring a man back to life. In the midst of conjuring up the forces of evil, the head necromancer Reanhauer has a heart attack and is rushed to hospital. Whilst in hospital he is attended to by Nurse Sherri and he speaks to her in long monologues regarding the supernatural. Reanhauer's condition rapidly worsens and he ends up on the operating table under the scalpel of Peter, Sherri's surgeon boyfriend (with the assistance of Sherri) where he eventually expires. Later on when Sherri is at home masturbating on her bed, a strange animated green ethereal fog floats into her room and rapes her(although she doesn't really put up much of a fight). This is definitely one of the "trippiest" rapes I've ever witnessed on celluloid, and probably the highlight of the film.

It turns out that the green fog was the blasphemous cult leader's spirit and now Nurse Sherri is possessed! You can tell cos she speaks in a man's voice and bugs her eyes outta her head. She then goes a killing spree, massacring a few doctors - one is dispatched via pitchfork impalement, another is stabbed in the chest. A blind ex-footballer hospital patient whose grandmother is a Haitian Voodoo priestess says the only way to exorcise Nurse Sherri's evil possessor is to dig up and burn the corpse of Reanhauer, so a couple of Sherri's nurse friends cruise to the cemetery for some good ol' grave desecratin'.

I actually dug this cheapie from Al Adamson quite a bit more than I'd expected to. I mean yeah, there are a lot of slow parts, the ultra low budget sets and amateurish acting are blatant and the films theme song is stolen directly from The Godfather, but that just goes to show this flick for what it essentially is - a typical slice of 70's exploitation fare, designed to draw in the crowds who are eager to see some gratuitous nudity and a bit of blood.

And there's enough exploitable elements here to make for some entertaining (if slightly tame) sleaze, mainly of the sexed-up female nurse variety. Whether it be pointless flashbacks to "the craziest sexual experience'' Sherri and her boyfriend have ever had (a lesbian encounter and a naughty blowjob), patient "relief" that goes far beyond the call of duty, some semi-bloody kills, and a grand finale that has a bugged out Nurse Sherri covered in blood with a meat cleaver in each hand preparing to slaughter her boyfriend Peter. All in all one of the more enjoyable pieces of trash I've seen from schlock-maestro Adamson.

Al gives us his take of THE EXORCIST. A cult leader has a heart attack in the desert while performing a ritual to raise a follower from the dead and subsequently dies on the operating table at a local hospital. No big deal, he'll just turn into a glowing green blob and possess Nurse Sherri (Jill Jacobson) to get revenge on the doctors who he feels killed him. This is bad news for Sherri's love life as her boyfriend Peter (Geoffrey Land) was one of the docs. Peter notices the changes in Sherri and it seems only a blinded former NFL player with knowledge of voodoo (!) who is a patient can offer the way for two nurses (Marilyn Joi and Mary Kay Pass) to help release Sheri from this transcendental terror. If you are familiar with Adamson's work, you'll know what to expect here as this has lots of static shots that go on too long and flat acting. There is also one of the funniest and most random car chases when a drunken follower confronts Peter – who is oddly not intrigued by this man's story, despite knowing his girl is now possessed – in a parking garage. They then burst out onto the city streets and end up in the desert within minutes. The poor follower survives having the roof of his car ripped off and leaps out just before it drives off a cliff and explodes (the film's highlight). The Shock-o-rama DVD offers an alternate version of the film title simply NURSE SHERRI and it is actually really interesting. It removes all of the drunken follower bits (including the car chase) from the POSSESSION version and replaces them with nude scenes.

"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.

Reanhauer (Bill Roy), the leader of a strange religious cult, suffers from a heart attack while trying to resurrect a three week old corpse. When he pops his clogs on the operating table, his spirit possesses buxom nurse Sherri Martin (Jill Jacobson) and forces her to exact revenge on those present at his death.

Nurse Sherri is incredibly cheap and technically inept in almost every way imaginable. The production values are pathetic: for the operation scene, cult director Al Adamson shells out for an oxygen mask and a saline drip—and that's it. The film also has one of the worst optical effects that I've ever seen in the form of the badly animated spirit that possesses Sherri, which looks like someone spilt some corrosive chemical on the negative and then scribbled on it with crayons. The performances are uniformly crap and the direction amateurish. The only half-decent death scene is an impalement by pitchfork. I watched the film last night and it had me drifting off quicker than a shot of Diprivan in the ass.

However, today I have learnt of an alternative edit…

Version two is, of course, still cheap and technically inept in almost every way imaginable, but Adamson compensates for this by throwing in a lot more T&A, which as all fans of low budget horror know, always makes z-grade trash far easier to bear. In the spirit of fairness, I've checked out these racy scenes on YouTube and can testify that the naughtier 'adult' cut is the more entertaining option: curvaceous star Jill Jacobson gets naked (she remains frustratingly clothed in the tamer version) and the film benefits from a lesbian fantasy and an amusing scene in which a nurse gives a doctor head while he is presenting a lecture—all of which is more likely to keep the viewer awake for the duration.

2/10 for the tame version; 4/10 for the saucier cut (which I'll average out to 3/10 for IMDb).