The Charge

Same Lord. New messiah.

The Case

A young woman named Sarah (Tiffany Shepis, Dorm of the Dead) lands a highly sought after position at a well-regarded convent run by some freaky-deaky nuns. Determined to her wipe away the memories of her dark past and focus on solitude and communion with the Lord, Sarah hops into her habit and buckles down for some righteous prayer time.

Unfortunately, she's surrounded by lunatics and when she's besieged by nightmarish visions of rape, incest and murder, the nuns react violently. Sarah undergoes a series of gruesome tortures, including eye gouging, hand burning and tongue cutting, along with the emotional trauma of constantly being harassed by the nuns in Latin.

So what's the deal with this place? Without ruining anything let's just say there's more than meets the eye to the convent, and that they're not exactly into "worshiping the Lord" so much as "creeping everyone the @#$% out with their fanatical devotion to a Satanic weirdo."

And that's about it. If you're hard up for a religious thriller, I'll recommend Nympha no problem. It's got all the ingredients: a shadowy conspiracy, uptight nuns with something to hide, lots of pounding on the walls in a confined space, feverish visions, bleeding walls, old horny guys that are attracted to their own family, torture in the name of piousness, spontaneous lesbianism, chanting, screaming, pleading, dead languages and a big reveal, which is exactly fairly unsettling. So kudos!

Tiffany Shepis deserves a hefty percentage of those kudos. She turns in a brave performance, willing to shed her clothes, be placed into humiliating positions and invasively examined by the convent doctor, coated with fake blood and poked and prodded.

But the film gets the most traction out of the big mystery behind the convent and who exactly this Nympha character is. The exposition is unveiled gradually through the flashbacks and visions until one of the nuns lets the beans spill, and the truth behind Nympha is dropped and it's actually pretty cool. And things get crazy after that, up to and including the finale, which is bizarre, but that's the way it should be.

The main gripe I've got is the pacing, which tends to lag in the middle. Lots of hushed conversations in corridors and sobbing don't necessarily keep the momentum rocketing forward.

Overall, a decent little religious/nunsploitation thriller and something that should appeal to those interested in the genre. The disc is lean, featuring solid tech specs (1.85:1 anamorphic widescreen and 2.0 stereo) and the film's trailer.

Similar Decisions

• Valentine
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• Ride With The Devil

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