Plot
France, 1700. Young Susanna is raped by her stepfather. Her mother witnesses the crime and urges that Susanna be put into a convent, against her will. The monastery is a strange place since many nuns are oversexed. Some of them sometimes masturbate and flog themselves. The Mother Superior is sexually attracted to Susanna and makes advances. This arouses the jealousy of her former lover Sister Theresa, who starts scheming to regain her former position.
As the Mother Superior's tuberculosis grows stronger, Theresa takes temporary command of the monastery and abuses her power to make Susanna's life a living hell. Theresa spreads a rumor that Susanna is possessed by the Devil, and locks her in a rat-infested dungeon, then tricks the poor girl into drinking a substance that makes her feverish. She later orders some of the nuns to drag Susanna naked from her bed and whips her violently, claiming she is just trying to beat the Devil out of her.
The Monsignor hears word that one of the local nuns is demonically possessed and decides to investigate. He sends his personal exorcist to the convent, and Susanna is tied up and tortured and confined to a cell. At Theresa's behest, an exorcist even subjects Susanna to a douche by means of a vaginal syringe filled with holy water to clean the Devil from her body. When the Mother Superior dies, Susanna is accused of causing her death by witchcraft. Finally a trial is held in which Susanna is accused of being in league with Satan.
Gabriele Amorth was an Italian Catholic priest of the Paulines and an exorcist for the Diocese of Rome. Amorth, along with five other priests, founded the International Association of Exorcists.
Mother Joan of the Angels is a 1961 Polish horror art film on demonic possession, directed by Jerzy Kawalerowicz, based on a novella of the same title by Jarosław Iwaszkiewicz, loosely based on the 17th century Loudun possessions. The film won the Special Jury Prize at the 1961 Cannes Film Festival.
Nunsploitation is a subgenre of exploitation film which had its peak in Europe in the 1970s. These films typically involve Christian nuns living in convents during the Middle Ages.
La Religieuse is an 18th-century French novel by Denis Diderot. Completed in about 1780, it was first published by Friedrich Melchior Grimm in 1792 in his Correspondance littéraire in Saxony, and subsequently in 1796 in France.
Bellis Marina Hedman, also known as Marina Frajese, Marina Lotar and Marina Lothar is a retired Swedish pornographic and mainstream actress.
Dark Habits is a 1983 Spanish black comedy film written and directed by Pedro Almodóvar and starring Julieta Serrano, Marisa Paredes and Chus Lampreave. The plot follows a cabaret singer who finds refuge in a convent of eccentric nuns, while the film is an exploration of the anachronistic situation of institutionalized religion in contemporary Spanish society.
Benedetta Carlini was an Italian Catholic nun who claimed to experience mystic visions. As abbess of the Convent of the Mother of God, at Pescia, she had a sexual relationship with one of her nuns, Sister Bartolomea. These came to the attention of the Counter-Reformation papacy, determined to subordinate potentially troublesome mystics if they showed any signs of heretical spirituality. Although they paid three to four visits to the nunnery, it was not until they interrogated Sister Bartolomea that they found that Benedetta and Bartolemea had engaged in sexual relations. Bartolomea gave testimony that Benedetta engaged in frottage with her while possessed by the spirit of a male demon known as Splenditello. Benedetta was stripped of her rank and imprisoned.
The Aix-en-Provence possessions were a series of alleged cases of demonic possession occurring among the Ursuline nuns of Aix-en-Provence in 1611. Father Louis Gaufridi was accused and convicted of causing the possession by a pact with the devil, and he was tortured by strappado and his bones dislocated. He was then executed on April 1611 by strangulation and his body burned. This case provided the legal precedent for the conviction and execution of Urbain Grandier at Loudun more than 20 years later. This event led to possessions spreading to other convents and a witch burning in 1611.
The Loudun possessions, also known as the Loudun possessed affair, was a notorious witchcraft trial that took place in Loudun, Kingdom of France, in 1634. A convent of Ursuline nuns said they had been visited and possessed by demons. Following an investigation by the Catholic Church, a local priest named Urbain Grandier was accused of summoning the evil spirits. He was eventually convicted of the crimes of sorcery and burned at the stake.
The Devils of Loudun is a 1952 non-fiction novel by Aldous Huxley.
The Nun and the Devil is an erotic 1973 Italian nunsploitation film directed by Domenico Paolella. It is also known as: Sisters of Satan (UK) and The Nuns of Saint Archangel (US). The action is set in the 16th century at the convent of Sant Arcangelo, near Naples, then under Spanish rule. The success of the film resulted in another period drama/nunsploitation film by Paolella released the same year, Story of a Cloistered Nun, an Italian/French/West German co-production starring Eleonora Giorgi.
The Nun is a 1966 French drama film directed by Jacques Rivette from a screenplay he co-wrote with Jean Gruault, based on the novel of the same title by Denis Diderot.
Emanuelle and the Last Cannibals, also known as Trap Them and Kill Them, is a 1977 Italian sexploitation cannibal film directed by Joe D'Amato. The film involves photojournalist Emanuelle, who encounters a cannibalistic woman bearing a tattoo of an Amazonian tribe in a mental hospital. Along with Professor Mark Lester, the two travel to the Amazon with a team to discover the source of the long-thought-extinct tribe that still practices cannibalism today.
Conspiracy of Hearts is a 1960 British Second World War film, directed by Ralph Thomas, about nuns in Italy smuggling Jewish children out of an internment camp near their convent to save them from The Holocaust. It stars Lilli Palmer, Sylvia Syms, Yvonne Mitchell and Ronald Lewis, and was nominated for a Golden Globe for Best Film Promoting International Understanding at the 18th Golden Globe Awards in 1961.
Images in a Convent is a 1979 sexploitation film by Italian cult filmmaker Joe D'Amato starring Paola Senatore, Marina Hedman and Donald O'Brien.
The Other Hell is a 1981 Italian horror film written and directed by Bruno Mattei and Claudio Fragasso and starring Franca Stoppi and Carlo De Mejo.
The Eerie Midnight Horror Show is a 1974 Italian horror film Exorcist clone directed by Mario Gariazzo, and starring Stella Carnacina and Chris Avram. Ivan Rassimov played Satan in the film. A hardcoreversion called Sexorcist Devil was also released.
Jeanne des Anges, also known as Jeanne de Belcier, was a French Ursuline nun in Loudun, France. She became mother superior of the convent at a young age, but is chiefly remembered as a central figure in the case of the possessed of Loudun in 1632, which led, after witch trials, to the burning at the stake of the priest Urbain Grandier two years later.
Jessica Moore is a retired Italian actress who was active from 1986 to 1989, appearing mainly in erotic drama and horror films. She is best known for her role as the writer and libertine Sarah Asproon in the commercially successful films Eleven Days, Eleven Nights (1987) and Top Model (1988), both produced and directed by Joe D'Amato. In Italian productions, she is sometimes credited as Gilda Germano.
More Sexy Canterbury Tales is a 1972 Italian decamerotic comedy film directed and shot by Joe D'Amato, who also wrote the story and acts in a small part as one of the monks.
