The Importance Of Nunsploitation In Horror Films

A film only review. There’s a UK DVD release (£20 new, £6.50 second hand), which is quite heavily cut. There’s an uncut German release, but the reason for some of the UK cuts is that the lead actress was only 17 when the film was made, so you might want to think twice before trying to import that…

Jess Franco was a staggeringly prolific Spanish director of horror and sleaze movies. Active from the early 60s until his death in 2013, Franco directed almost 200 films, which range from vaguely respectable horror films to hardcore porn. Most of his efforts have a cheap and cheerful, almost homemade quality (his last few films were apparently literally made in his living room), but there were periods of his career when he managed to get reasonable

Nunsploitation basically developed as a variant on the ‘women in prison’ film, a genre which offered plenty of opportunities for shower scenes, girls kissing, and general brutality. Nunsploitation puts the prisoners in wimples, does away with the communal showers, and usually offers a faintly literary gloss, but it’s basically the same thing. There are a few good nunsploitation films (Alucarda and Satanico Pandemonium are lots of fun), but most of them offer mucho sleaze to little effect. Love Letters is definitely in that

And that’s just the start of her troubles! It seems like literally everything she says or does lands her in deeper trouble. You’ll find yourself rooting for her because she’s the only nice person in the film, but she’s a bit too passive in her acceptance of all the nasty stuff that happens to her. Franco was a big fan of the Marquis de Sade, and Maria resembles the heroine of De Sade’s novel Justine, the virtuous girl on whom all manner of evils are heaped (Franco also adapted that novel, more than