Horror Extreme Movie Review - Killer Nun (Suor Omicidi)

A noticeable gap in the Horror Extreme Video Nasty collection was the gap that can only be filled by a nunsploitation movie. Killer Nun (Suor Omicidi), also known as Deadly Habits, filled this gap nicely but the reason for its banishment to the video nasty list in the first place can only be assumed to be subject matter as there is little nastiness, just a number of taboos exploited. The movie was first released in 1978 when the combination of religion, an abundance of boobies, cruelty to old people, drug use, lesbianism and the occasional sadistic tortuous death was probably quite shocking! Killer Nun is an Italian exploitation movie that seems to have a deliberate mission to mix everything that society frowns upon in a movie, with some hardcore Jesus worship to shock the god-fearing population and send the censors into a Number 5 style short circuit. Unlike a number of other movies on the UK ex-banned list, director Giulio Berruti manages to convey and element of storyline and enigma as well as the usual amount of inappropriate behavior.

Sister Gertrude's (Anita Ekberg) recent brain operation has left her suffering intolerable headaches and with very little sympathy from her fellow sisters she turns to morphine. In the absence of morphine she finds relief in terrorizing the elderly and disabled patients she looks after by subjecting them to a strict regime of discipline, exercise and gory bible passages. It soon becomes obvious that Sister Gertrude's operation has left her a little unhinged as she experiences blackouts and violent mood swings, her mental stability is not helped by sharing a room with the super sexy, big boobed, hirsute triangled, bi-sexual Sister Matthieu (Paola Morra) encouraging her to spread her wings for some nun-on-nun action (to be honest I'd consider finding Jesus and a sex-change if the opportunity was still there).

Soon the geriatric population of the nun ruled hospital begins to die in suspicious "natural circumstances" and the fingers of accusation start to point at Sister Gertrude. Unable to recollect periods of her life, Sister Gertrude questions her own drug-addled self which in turn sends her plummeting into a downward spiral of insanity.

Based on a true story about a real nun who suffered brain damage after the removal of a tumor and assisted her patients on their journey to the afterlife so she could steal their jewelry to sustain her morphine addiction, Killer Nun is pure exploitation with minimal gore but enough boundaries pushed, broken and napalmed to upset the average viewer. There is a profusion of perverse and well shot scenes, notably when Sister Gertrude looses the plot whilst she and her patients pray for the soul of a recent victim, the chant's increasing volume as the camera travels down the hallway provides a very ominous feel and really emphasizes the mental trauma that our favorite nun is going through with enough spiritual atmosphere to make an atheist leave a little puddle.

There are a couple of traumatizing scenes, most famously the pin and scalpel torture of "the granny that knows too much" and the birds-eye view of the white habit clad Sister Gertrude splattered in blood as she looks up at the corpse of the latest victim of the sisterly slayer. The twist, although rather predictable quite early on in the film, provides an invigorating interweave and once again proves that exploitation movies don't need to be mindless shocks/gore and can quite easily have a plot and still mention almost every unmentionable in a movie.