Killer Nun

Shameless Screen Entertainment are to release Giulio Berruti’s infamous KILLER NUN, or if you prefer, SUOR OMICIDI (Italy, 1978). It’s also known by the rather apt title THE DEADLY HABIT, which makes much more sense when you’ve seen the film. Anita Ekberg (LA DOLCE VITA and SCREAMING MIMI) stars in the story of a sexually-repressed, drug-addicted nun whose convent life becomes tainted by anti-clerical hallucinations, lesbianism, torture and death. Ekberg is joined by fellow genre legends Joe Dallesandro (FLESH FOR FRANKENSTEIN and BLOOD FOR DRACULA) and Alida Valli. Valli is, of course, better known for her appearance in THE THIRD MAN, but she has made an impressive contribution to the horror genre starring in, LES YEUX SANS VISAGE, EYE IN THE LABYRINTH, LISA AND THE DEVIL, THE ANTICHRIST, TENDER DRACULA, SUSPIRIA and INFERNO.

KILLER NUN is infamous firstly for winding up the Catholic Church, as I imagine every nunsploitation film did, but this film was marketed as a true story; “From the secret archives of the Vatican”. Secondly the film gathered notoriety for appearing on the Director of Public Prosecutions banned list during the dark days of the 1980’s. The Techno Film VHS release was added to the banned list in August 1984, where it would reside until July 1985, when it was dropped. It took the powers-that-be just under a year to decide that the film wouldn’t turn the nation into junkie, sex-mad, clerical killers. The last time the film was seen in the UK was courtesy of the Redemption video label who released KILLER NUN (RED 005) as the fifth title in their lengthy and impressive, but often censored, horror/exploitation catalogue.

The Shameless DVD cover tries to recapture the spirit of the video artwork of the early 1980’s. It depicts a torture victim with white masking tape across her mouth. Across the tape is written “Father I’ve been a murderous whore”, and the blurb beneath the film’s title proudly announces, “At last the slut is uncut”!

This is of course good news for UK viewers, and also represents a big two-fingers-up gesture to the censors and the dullards at the Video Packaging Review Committee who, in their quest for "good taste", managed to destroy the fine art of the pre-cert video cover.

The film will be presented remastered in 1.85:1 with English 2.0 sound. Also included on the disc is a Shameless original trailer gallery.

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