Images in a Convent Blu-ray Movie

Rating summary

Movie		2.0
Video		2.5
Audio		4.0
Extras		2.0
Overall		2.0

Images in a Convent Blu-ray Movie Review

Reviewed by Jeffrey Kauffman December 25, 2021

Note: This film is available on Blu-ray as part of Nasty Habits: The Nunsploitation Collection.

Maybe just a little hilariously, the film cited in this set in at least a couple of supplements as having started the relatively brief but decidedly provocative "Nunsploitation" phase in global (and, notably, Italian) cinema, Ken Russell's 1971 The Devils, is as of the writing of this review nowhere to be seen on Blu-ray, but niche labels like Severin Films evidently have had little trouble finding all sorts of other films featuring randy women in wimples (and, frequently, little else). Two of the films aggregated in this set, Cristiana Devil Nun and Story of a Cloistered Nun, come from relatively early in the Nunsploitation craze (at least if one takes The Devils as a starting point), while the other two, Images in a Convent and The True Story of the Nun of Monza, stem from 1979 and 1980, when exploitation tastes may have moved on to other peculiar pleasures. Severin has assembled some interesting supplements to accompany the films, and the set is housed in a nicely designed slipbox.

Commentator Kat Ellinger frequently likes to defy commonly accepted "wisdom" about various filmmakers, and that may be one reason why she seems to be a rather ardent defender and perhaps even champion of Joe D'Amato, the "auteur" behind Images in a Convent. Ellinger, as well as the video essay by Lindsay Hallam included as a supplement on the disc containing Cristiana Devil Nun, get into some of the literary antecedents of films like Images in a Convent, and in that regard, there is definitely a sadistic streak running through the film, with an understanding of the etymology of the word "sadistic".

This is another film that, somewhat like Story of a Cloistered Nun, seems to deliver an innocent naif to a convent, though in this case Isabella (Paola Senatore) turns out to be anything but pure as the driven snow. Kind of interestingly, the film almost gets into something akin to the territory covered by another film that, like Ken Russell's The Devils, came out in 1971, namely The Beguiled. An already sexually adventurous Isabella has more "opportunities" when a wounded man named Guido (Angelo Arquilla) is brought back to the convent to heal.

However, there's an almost supernatural element running through Images in a Convent as well, which begin to work in abrupt jump cuts to a statue of a horned god who might be Pan, Bacchus or Satan himself, and who might be a marble depiction of Guido. The result is an often hallucinatory mishmash that has the requisite amount of sex and sleaze that those acquainted with D'Amato's output will be expecting.

Images in a Convent Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Images in a Convent is presented on Blu-ray courtesy of Severin Films with an AVC encoded 1080p transfer in 1.85:1. Despite this being one of the two films in the Nasty Habits set encoded via the newer AVC regimen, and also despite the fact that the back cover of this release states the presentation was "scanned in 2K from the original negative of the uncut version", I personally found this to be one of the two less pleasing looking transfers of the set. While the apparent provenance of the element would suggest otherwise, this has a kind of "dupey" look that includes washed out colors and a really thick grain field. There's frequently a kind of quasi-pixellated look that accompanies the grain, and there are both blue and yellow glints that can populate any given frame (see screenshot 9 for one example). Detail levels struggle to overcome the almost scrim like "surface" that so much of this presentation offers. There is also slight but noticeable age related wear and tear in the form of small nicks and specks.

Images in a Convent Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

Images in a Convent features an LPCM 2.0 Mono track in the original Italian. This has a rather nicely burnished sound overall, which includes able support for a surprisingly effective score by Nico Fidenco that features some especially nice sounding choral music. Dialogue is rendered cleanly and clearly throughout, and I noticed no problems whatsoever with regard to damage, distortion or dropouts. Optional English subtitles are available.

Images in a Convent Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

• Audio Commentary by Kat Ellinger, Author of Daughters of Darkness is another wide ranging analysis by Ellinger, who as mentioned above champions Joe D'Amato's work.


• 25 Minutes of Deleted Scenes with Optional Commentary by Kat Ellinger (HD; 25:21) comes with a text prologue stating:

  The element used to remaster this version was a 16mm single strand original negative which included over twenty minutes of footage that was later cut from the finished film.
  
  Although there is no sound, we wanted to include this footage because it substantially changed characters as well as add a bit to the ending that was so fantastic, it had to be seen.

  It's perhaps salient to note that while the back cover lists the title of this supplement the way I have here, the main disc menu actually does not, and in fact the Ellinger commentary is not optional, since there is no other soundtrack.

Images in a Convent Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

Images in a Convent is probably the most unabashedly sleazy of the four offerings in the Nasty Habits set, but fans of D'Amato would probably expect no less. This had one of the less pleasing looking transfers in the set to my eyes, but the Ellinger commentaries on both the main feature and deleted scenes are very interesting, for those who may be considering making a purchase.