Sacred Flesh

Nigel Wingrove's less than spectacular try on the nunsploitation genre is quite ridiculous a film indeed, on every level. A Mother Superior is suffering from an extreme form of horniness-induced delirium brought about by her reading the carnal confessions of her fellow sisters, who invariably are silicone pumped sex fiends prone to succumbing to the callings of their young flesh. She descends into a hallucinatory limbo where Mary Magdalene herself encourages her to stop the mortification of her flesh and instead save her sanity by giving in to her innate sexual frenzy. Whipping, masturbation, lesbianism and group sex follow, as they should.

This film sucks, but in a good way. Acting is terrible, costumes laughable and the soft-core sex scenes tame, poorly performed and devoid of any illusion of feeling whatsoever. I've always imagined the real sex life of nuns to be much dirtier, perverse and more demented.

That's not to say the time spent on this flick was wasted. In a right state of mind, with the right company, watching this piece of garbage can be an exquisite pleasure.

Recommended for true connoisseurs of the poopier side of cinema.

Porn in Britain has an unusual history, often presented in bowdlerized versions (like horror releases, given to local censorship), and this distributor Redemption/Salvation Films released many a mainstream U.S. porn video of the '90s with all the explicit sex removed.

Here we have a sex film about nuns, made to capitalize on that genre and the ongoing popularity of Ken Russell's breakthrough "The Devils", that takes itself so seriously as to sap the energy and arousal potential out of a softcore feature. That being said, the attention to detail and visual creativity make it of interest nonetheless.

The story such as it is has a convent in turmoil, with the mother superior (an earnest NonSex performance by Sally Tremaine) seemingly going crazy, having conversations with Mary Magdalene (played acidly by Kristina Bill) who is presented (in her mind) as sort of a Devil. Many scenes of nuns having sex are presented but most of the film (shot on video) is a talkfest with protagonists wondering whether some satanic cult is at work.

I was interested to see several topflight Adult Cinema actresses (of the future) participating in the most explicit, though strictly softcore, action, notably Michelle Thorne masturbating with conviction but hardly recognizable as this was shot before she had her iconic huge breasts surgically created, the naturally buxom Hannah Callow in a lesbian twosome, and lovely Majella Shepherd pawed by two lustful clergymen, years before she so memorably (and comically) took on Mandingo in the American porn video "Chasing the Big Ones 13".

One has to have some justification for watching a film like this. Surely, we cannot be just voyeurs, are we? This is probably the ultimate in nunsploitation films. I am certainly not through investigation, but I cannot imagine something more perverse than this one.

So, we have to follow along with the writer/director who apparently wanted to justify the sumptuous feast of nun flesh in this film by having not one, but two or three philosophical discussions going on about mean and women, nuns, and satisfying your carnal desires. Bugger! Just fast forward through all that and get to the action.

And, what action you will see in this film. It stretched the line between soft and hard core porn so far that I actually felt it may bust through if there was one more scene. Full frontal nudity was the norm, and those none were certainly passionate about satisfying each other - or themselves if no one was about to help. A nunnery full of bodacious babes and all there for us to enjoy. Even the priests got in on the act somewhat as they wanted to make sure that a particular nun knew what she was sacrificing.

Whew! I am just overwhelmed at what goes on behind those walls.

British nunsploitation, made as a tribute to the European nun flicks of the 70s (director/writer Nigel Wingrove is actually the founder of UK media company Salvation, which distributes work by directors such as Jess Franco, Jean Rollin, Dario Argento, Mario Bava, Bruno Mattei, and Lucio Fulci).

In the past (we don't know exactly when, but people travel around on horseback) a Mother Superior has become obsessed with lustful thoughts after hearing confessions from some of her young nuns. In her agitated state she imagines having a conversation with Mary Magdalene and (for some reason ) a zombie nun, during which she recounts four of these confessions. As she does so we see them played out.

All the young nuns are played by 'adult entertainment' actresses - not surprising given the scenarios are nude soft-core involving self-flagellation and/or sex between nuns. The acting is atrocious, and the 'story' is nothing but an excuse to show... stuff. However... compared to most skin-flicks (IMDb classifies this simply as 'horror', but let's call it what it is), it clearly has a budget, with a nifty title sequence, good location work (inside and outside), costumes, props, a (relatively) large cast, and a 1 hr 15 min runtime. The camerawork is also pretty good, and the girls are hot (although obvious boob jobs, lipstick, and nail-varnish do look out of place on nuns; no wonder so much stuff was going on!). Oh, for Brits there's a cameo by cult actress and sometime TV presenter Emily Booth. 5/10.

Now there are some people who watch porn movies who say they like to see a bit of a story and there are some who like to see just action and no story (i fall in the second catagory). In Sacred Flesh we see have a film that fits into neither catagory. This joke of a film does try to show a story but it is so full of religious clap trap that you can't help but reach for the fast forward button to search for the fleshy good bits. Thats were we have the other problem, apart from a couple of flashes of soft porn we see nothing that would get anybody exited .If your thinking of seeing this for the sex ,watch something else because this wont do it for you.

The costumes look like they had been made at the local primary school and the acting was so laughable , especially from the men , that it provides the only entertainment. Dont touch this with a barge pole. 1 out of 10.