DVD Movie Guide @ dvdmg.com
.
Review Archive:  # | A-C | D-F | G-I | J-L | M-O | P-R | S-U | V-Z | Viewer Ratings | Main
IMAGE ENTERTAINMENT

MOVIE INFO

Director:
Joseph Guzman
Cast:
Asun Ortega, David Castro, Perry D'Marco, Maxie J. Santillan Jr., Ivet Corvea, Aycil Yeltan, Emma Messenger
Writing Credits:
Joseph Guzman, Robert James Hayes II

Tagline:
This Sister Is One Bad Mother.

Synopsis:
After deciding to take her vows at a convent, Sister Sarah becomes enslaved and victimized by the drug-pushing predators within the church walls and, on the verge of death, receives a divine message – to seek revenge! Packing heat and shedding her habit, this sister of no mercy embarks on a relentless rampage against these unholy men of the cloth and their partners in crime, a vicious biker gang known as Los Muertos. Packed with sex, violence, and wall-to-wall mayhem, this outrageous modern cult favorite in the tradition of the greatest drive-in action classics proves that hell hath no fury like a nude nun scorned.

Box Office:
Budget
$85 thousand.

MPAA:
Rated NR

DVD DETAILS
Presentation:
Aspect Ratio: 1.85:1
Audio:
English DTS-HD MA 5.1
Subtitles:
English
Spanish
Closed-captioned
Supplements Subtitles:
None

Runtime: 92 min.
Price: $29.97
Release Date: 2/14/2012

Bonus:
• Short Film
• Trailer


PURCHASE @ AMAZON.COM

EQUIPMENT
Panasonic 50" TH-50PZ77U 1080p Plasma Monitor; Sony STR-DG1200 7.1 Channel Receiver; Panasonic DMP-BD60K Blu-Ray Player using HDMI outputs; Michael Green Revolution Cinema 6i Speakers (all five); Kenwood 1050SW 150-watt Subwoofer.

RELATED REVIEWS

[an error occurred while processing this directive]


Nude Nuns With Big Guns [Blu-Ray] (2010)

Reviewed by Colin Jacobson (January 25, 2012)

Can any red-blooded hetero male pass up a film called Nude Nuns with Big Guns? Probably, but the promise of that title meant the Blu-ray deserved a spot in my player.

Rather than pursue spiritual goals, a corrupt monastery puts nuns to work packing drugs for kingpin Chavo (David Castro). When one delivery goes wrong, Sister Sarah (Asun Ortega) ends up enslaved as a prostitute. Strung out on drugs to keep her compliant, Sister Sarah eventually gets care from a “witch doctor” (Maxie J. Santillian, Jr.) and recovers.

During her recovery, Sister Sarah believes she receives a sign from God that she needs to take vengeance on all the wrongdoers around her. She takes on high-powered weaponry and launches her crusade of violence.

As you watch Nuns, you might think you’re seeing the latest exploitation-style flick from Robert Rodriguez. That’s exactly the way Nuns plays, though it comes across like a movie Rodriguez would make it he completely forgot how to make movies.

I suspect that other filmmakers see the work of Rodriguez or Quentin Tarantino and assume they can do just as well. After all, those directors show copious influence from old “exploitation” B-movies, so how hard can it be?

Very hard, in fact – at least very hard to make something that actually rises above the dodgy quality of the flicks that inspired Tarantino and Rodriguez. Not only does Nuns fail to live up to their work, but also it doesn’t even manage to provide the basic fun value of the average B-movie; it’s a complete dud.

I get the feeling writer/director Joseph Guzman exhausted all his creativity with the movie’s title. Rather than populate Nuns with interesting situations, good action set pieces, or compelling characters, he expects the boobs ‘n’ blood to do all the work for him.

This means that events mostly just happen. The narrative is as thin as can be, and we get to know little about the various personalities outside of some basic stereotypes.

And that’d be fine if Nuns delivered actual entertainment. No one goes to see a flick like this for great cinema; they just want some crude thrills and gratuitous skin/violence.

Unfortunately, Nuns exists as the opposite of a fun B-movie. It seems to confuse “tawdry and unpleasant” for “exciting and titillating”.

Indeed, I don’t know if I’ve ever seen a film that tosses out rapes as casually as Nuns. It provides a bunch of them, and they come with an odd lack of judgment; rather than paint them as horrific and invasive, Nuns plays them like any other violent scene. There’s some negativity involved, but the rapes feel no different than minor torture sequences.

That makes them even more difficult to watch. Maybe others will disagree, but I think sexual assaults like those seen here shouldn’t be thrown out as standard B-movie violence. The flick’s nonchalant use of these incidents seems misguided at best and downright misogynistic.

Nothing about Nuns succeeds – though I do admit it lives up to its title, as it includes copious amounts of nudity. Okay, I like those parts of the film; we see lots of pretty good skin throughout Nuns.

But everything else is awful. As already mentioned, the story and characters are thin as can be, and the development of the tale falters. There’s never a flow to the action; things just happen, and any potential drama or excitement fails to materialize.

The whole thing looks and feels cheap. Granted, I’m sure it was cheap – I’d assume the flick had a super-low budget – but that doesn’t mean it has to come across as so “bargain basement”. Acting seems particularly terrible, as there’s not a performance on display that even qualifies as mediocre; across the board, we find one horrible turn after another.

All that and Nuns ends with a teaser for a potential sequel! Hopefully that’ll never materialize, as the cinematic world doesn’t need more crap like this. Nuns fails as any form of movie entertainment.


The Blu-ray Grades: Picture C+/ Audio D/ Bonus D

Nude Nuns with Big Guns appears in an aspect ratio of approximately 1.85:1 on this Blu-Ray Disc. The transfer came with a mix of ups and downs.

Sharpness varied. Much of the flick showed nice clarity and detail, but more than a few exceptions came along the way, so expect occasional instances of soft, fuzzy visuals. I saw no signs of jagged edges or moiré efffects, and I noticed no edge haloes. No source flaws materialized, though some noise occurred.

The palette went with stylistic hues that changed frequently. Much of the flick used a bleached, sandy look, but other shots emphasized heavy reds or blues, and a few seemed fairly natural. The colors were decent but not much better than that; they lacked much real pizzazz. Blacks seemed average, while shadows could be a bit dense. This was a generally watchable image – and occasionally a strong one – but the inconsistencies left it as a “C+”.

I felt significantly less pleased with the film’s lousy DTS-HD MA 5.1 soundtrack. Actually, it’s a bit of a stretch to refer to this as a multi-channel mix. The majority of the material remained monaural; the side speakers opened up with mediocre stereo music and a few very minor environmental elements. If the surrounds did anything more than add modest support, I didn’t notice it; they were as passive as could be.

Audio quality was passable at best but often worse. Speech tended to be reedy and thin, without great clarity or natural tones. Music was oddly feeble, as the score and songs sounded weak and wan. Effects boasted greater heft but still lacked a lot of punch. The whole track felt flat and never brought any life to the proceedings; this became a drab mix that distracted from the film.

Only two extras show up here. In addition to the film’s trailer, we get the original Nude Nuns short film. It goes for three minutes, 46 seconds and really exists as a teaser more than a freestanding piece. We see a scene in which Sister Sarah seduces a lesbian and then kills her; a nearly identical sequence ends up in the longer film. It’s unclear what purpose this original short served, but like the feature flick, it’s cheap and poorly acted.

How could a movie called Nude Nuns With Big Guns be so incredibly boring? I don’t know, but it constantly remains dull, cheap, tacky and unpleasant. The Blu-ray provides decent picture but suffers from muddy, messy audio and a lack of supplements. Even fans of B-movie exploitation should stay away from this misbegotten stinker.

Viewer Film Ratings: 3 Stars Number of Votes: 4
15:
04:
2 3:
02:
11:
View Averages for all rated titles.

.
Review Archive:  # | A-C | D-F | G-I | J-L | M-O | P-R | S-U | V-Z | Viewer Ratings | Main