(aka Suor omicidi, La Petite Soeur du diable, La Nonne Qui Tue, Gestandnis Einer Nonne, De Non Die Doodt, La Monja homicide, Deadly Habit)
Director: Guilio Berruti
Music: Alessandro Alessandroni
Producer: Enzo Gallo
Starring:Anita Ekberg, Joe Dallesandro, Paola Morra, Lou Castel, Alida Valli, Massimo Serato, Alice Gherardi, Laura Nucci, Lee De Barriault.
Supposedly based on true events, Killer Nun stars Anita Ekberg as Sister Gertrude, who after having been successfully treated for a malignant brain tumor is convinced the surgery wasn’t a success and that she is still sick.
Sister Gertrude quickly falls under the spell of drug addiction in an effort to ease the headaches she believes she is suffering. This only escalates her fragile state of mind as she spirals out of control in an apparent whirlwind of murder and sexual degradation.
The film takes place in a French mental institution staffed by nuns. Sister Gertrude assists Dr. Poirret (Massimo Serato) with his patients, until their relationship becomes strained when the doctor refuses to prescribe any medication for the Sister’s ailments. Dr. Poirret believes them to be non-existence. This leads the Sister into finding other means of getting the drugs she desperate needs. In retaliation for the Dr. Poirret dissent she uses her influence with the director to get the doctor replaced by someone younger.
Dr. Poirret is replaced by Dr. Patrick Roland (Joe Dallesandro) and things aren’t quiet as she had planned, and Dr. Roland is even less tolerant of Sister Gertrude’s behavior.
The sister’s dependency on the drugs become even more apparent as she begins to treat the patients irrationally. At one point she screams at a patient for putting her teeth in a glass at the dinner table, then takes the false teeth from the elderly patient and crushes them into the floor before the poor woman’s very eyes.
When the elderly patient she tormented later dies from her weak heart, the Sister steals a ring from her dead body and quickly leaves the institute get her fix of morphine. And well, since she’s already committing one sin she figures another isn’t going to hurt, so she takes the time to indulge in some sins of the flesh.
Once she returns to the institute patients begin to turn up dead, and as suspicions falls on the Sister, her erratic behavior worsens and those suspecting Sister Gertrude are on the top of hit list.
Killer Nun is an entertaining and engaging film that takes the best elements of two genres and merges them together perfectly. The two genres being nunsploitation, and the style and pacing of a good giallo. The film is helped by a good cast, and although it’s hard to call Joe Dallesandro anything even close to a good actor, he’s one of those actors that is always a joy to see on screen.
