The catholic church seems to take it on the chin in a lot of films, from the latest outrage over The DaVinci Code to having to contend with Mel Gibson as their cinematic savior - times must be pretty rough over there in Italy. But for all of the kicking and screaming over Dan Brown’s best-selling novel, someone dropped the ball and has missed the reinvigoration of the nunsploitation film. Over the past year, nunsploitation has significantly reared its habited head back into the conscience of genre disciples. With the re-releases of Satanico Pandemonium and Sacred Flesh to the Ken Hall’s fantastic film The Halfway House, the sisters are doing it for themselves once again, and as everybody knows the best in sacrilegious “Sinema” breeds its parochial pain in the lands where Catholicism reigns supreme.

Spanish filmmaker Luis De La Madrid makes his feature film directorial debut after years working as editor on such films as Darkness, The Machinist and fellow countryman Guillermo del Toro’s brilliant masterpiece, The Devil’s Backbone. De La Madrid has jumped feet first into the fires of Christian damnation with his own take on the horrors of the Catholic boarding school. Part Devils Backbone and part Diabolique with just a touch of I Know What You Did Last Summer thrown in for the Hollywood teen machine, the Nun’s tale weaves the story of a group of rebellious girls who decide to take vengeance against a sadistic sister in order to defend themselves against the perverse and humiliating debasement they have been receiving. After sending the cloistered crazy to a watery grave, they think that their saga has ceased, but this wouldn’t be a horror film if not for the inevitable return. It is some years later, that each of the adult survivors slowly start to realize that her sinister spirit has returned to seek revenge.

De La Madrid tries to market the film to a younger audience by making the teenage daughter of one of the victims the protagonist, but by ignoring what could have been a much more harsh psychological look at the plight of the survivors, The Nun is marked by a failing “who cares” mentality. Simply put, the film feels too far removed from the immediacy of the life and death situations, couple that with the fact that the intentions of the ghost in exacting revenge on her murderers are so clear, the teens never feel mortally in peril. So, the whole film winds up as nothing more than a series of set pieces designed to showcase the tragic fates of the adult counterparts. Still, even with the flimsy plot design some of the death sequences are interesting and the catalyst behind the choosing of their ultimate fates adds a nice historic element to the film, making the killings a fabulous allegory of puritanical retribution. The performances from the international cast are middling, and the top notch set design often overshadows the cast. The editing is brisk, and the film never drags, in fact, the pacing could have been slowed a bit in the third act as the film suddenly seems like it is running full steam ahead to the unfortunately ridiculous ending.

The DVD contains a brief look behind the scenes and little else to speak of, but the audio is the real highlight here, taking a cue from Del Toro’s films De La Madrid employs a fantastic use of mood to set the scene in his film. The score by Zacarías M. de la Riva is haunting and the sound design envelops the viewer and truly pushes the film into a great claustrophobic corner. Even a few jump scares were surprisingly effective, which I think is entirely attributable to the mood that De La Madrid created with the film through the set and sound design. At best, The Nun confidently serves as a decent horror film, if not an altogether inspired or original addition to the modern library of Spanish scare flicks.