Mutant Reviewers from Hell do
"Damn demons, it’s always something with a virgin!"

2000 R / Horror Comedy Directed by: Mike Mendez Starring: Joanna Canton, Richard Trapp, Dax Miller

Tagline

Prayer Will Get You Nowhere

Summary Capsule

Evil Dead takes place in a deserted convent!

Mutant Meter

Movie Store [proceeds go toward monthly MRFH upkeep]

Amazon.com: DVD

Bobby's Rating: Give the girls a chainsaw and get the h*ll out of their way.
Bobby's Review: How did we overlook this? Oh, all you mutants who have missed this, my heart aches for you. I can picture you, going to the video store, passing this up in favor of some independent film or blockbuster. Glancing at the cover — not quite cheezy enough, but not quality either — and you pass it up. Oh ye of little faith, The Convent is the sort of movie that cult movie review sites were made for. I mean, WOW!

"Put them and Ash together, and the other side wouldn’t stand a chance."

Okay... where to start? First off, I don’t tend to like horror flicks or slasher films (and yet most of my reviews to date have been of these...hmmm, something to ponder later). But this one won me over! It has hot cheerleaders, attractive jocks, a cute goth girl, and a main character whose name is Clarissa (and as a Clarissa, it’s nice to have a role model besides the annoying Clarissa from that Nickelodeon show...what was the name of that again?), a haunted convent, gay Satan worshipers, chants to the tune of “Silver Bells”, virgins, a dog, nuns getting set on fire, demons, blacklights... Stop and breathe, in out, in out... I think I’m okay now.

This movie is an independent, written and directed by post-Catholic school students, which might help explain the first scene. It’s 1960 and an attractive female (Christine) steps out of her car with a shotgun and a can of gasoline. She walks into the convent and precedes to blow away all the nuns and then set fire to them to the tune of “You Don’t Own Me.” Then we jump ahead 40 years to 2000, where said convent is deserted, closed down after “the event” and the stuff of late night ghost stories and urban legends. As with all great haunted sites, there are always people trying to get in, either to have some alone time with the opposite sex, or to vandalize it, or even to conduct strange sacrifices.

This year a group of students attempts to spray their school letters on the convent’s tower, only to be interrupted by the local cops (Coolio in a HILARIOUS role!). Cute goth girl is left behind, and becomes an unwilling participant in a satanic rite to raise some demons. The local coven (led by Saul and his ever-present assistant “Dickie Boy”) are more successful than they could have imagined and a “big bad” shows up and begins a killing spree. As in Evil Dead, the demons are able to inhabit the recently dead, so as the death count rises, so does the number of icky demons wandering about.

The demons are incredibly well done. While not necessarily big budget, the jerky movements and strangely glowing veins creeped me out more than enough, as did the blood shower (why didn’t she just move out of the way?) and various mutilations including head smashing, beheading and an eyeball scene better left to the imagination.

Who can help the helpless/hapless teenagers? How about the only person to ever successfully battle the evil? That’s right, Christine, (played by the cult star Adrienne Barbeau) the heroine of 40 years ago and now quite jaded to stupid teenagers who keep getting themselves in trouble. And thus ensues some amazing ass kicking, demon slashing action. Put them and Ash together, and the other side wouldn’t stand a chance.

Are you still reading this review? Why haven’t you run off and rented this yet? You won’t be disappointed. I gave it an offensiveness rating of 5 because it is a bit gory and would probably be very offensive to very religious people, but the movie is meant to be fun. Personally, I watched it 2 times in the space of 4 hours.

Justin's Rating: 14 nuns walk into a bar...
Justin's Review: This movie's acting meets at the crossroads of Embarrassing Sterotypes Blvd. and Juvenile Bleatings Lane. Really, the levels of blatantly obvious character creations are so high as to make each person's complete one-sentence biography known by simply observing their outfits. Cheerleading uniform = nasty popular girl (although it's ironic that the cheerleader is the ugliest girl here). Black dress and dark makeup = Goth death lover. Plaid shirt = NERRRRRRD! Greasy guy with huge sideburns and cigarettes = sex-obsessed jockey. Dog = dog. Plain, homey outfit = girl next door who will most certainly be the heroine.

"Horror films have dipped into the well of self-awareness once too often, and by now it's just the same 'ha ha, we're in a horror flick' crapola we've been eating in bar form for years."

(In fact, deep within my brain is a little office that constantly churns out scenarios to explain the unexplainable. In the case of movies with such horribly stereotyped teenagers such as this, I have a few theories how a movie studio would accept these cardboard characters. I'd place good money that many studios hire the same disenchanted teenage boy to sit in on meetings and offer this sage advice: "Oh, yeah, SURE, that's how they'd act. Whatever, man." And the studios, not understanding the limitless depths of pubescent rage and sarcasm, blindly accepts this as an endorsement. I mean, these cinematic stereotypes really haven't changed since 1965, allowing for the addition of new sterotypes; aka "The Computer Geek", "The Goth Raver", "The One Fat Kid In A School Of Otherwise Perfectly Thin Kids", etc.)

Anyway, with that purged from my system until the next review, I welcome you to The Convent (NOT, as I was trying to search for it on IMDb, "The Coven"). After an impressively evil opening teaser, prepare to settle in for a good half hour of Dumb Kids Saying Dumb Things. It's like a clip show on Friends that only features Ross and Rachel skittering about and annoying me until I begin stabbing the TV with a spork for sweet, sweet relief. I appreciate what they've done with this development, however, because by the time The Convent gets into full swing, you really don't give a good flying whoop about any of these people — and in fact, you're craving their blood. I'm sure this was intentional.

Now, since I went to an elementary school that was converted from an old nun's convent, I can understand how these places can be pretty darn freaky, even without zombies and ritual sacrifices. But once the bad hoojoo gets going... well, you might was well pack up the kids and go home, this vacation is over.

The plot here is an even more self-aware version of Evil Dead 2, except it tries so hard that you almost feel sorry for the sheer effort covering up the mediocrity. There are kids — of course, the French soldiers to the horror movies' German armies — and there's a spooky place that just looks like a more rundown version of my last apartment complex, and there are evil spirits that are vaguely nunnish. Kids get trapped, and only a grizzled veteran of a thousand bad SciFi channel marathons can sort of save the day.

Basically, this film swings on an erratic pendulum that flickers quickly between good-badness and just-plain-bad-badness, sometimes so fastly that it manages to reach both ends of the spectrum in the same scene. Some of the lines and acting are gut-bustingly funny, but unfortunately not enough (the Dairy Queen Coven Leader needed a load more screen time, he was terrific). Horror films have dipped into the well of self-awareness once too often, and by now it's just the same "ha ha, we're in a horror flick" crapola we've been eating in bar form for years. And while relying heavily on black lighting for your demonic effects is at the very least unique, someone ought to have told the director that glowing neon blood is about as visceral as spraying Kool-aid everywhere.

At barely an hour and a half — a half-hour of which is plodding towards the real action — The Convent might only be worth your while as a way for you and your friends to feel all mighty and superior by taunting a movie that cannot defend itself against your spiteful accusations. Then again, that pendulum kept hitting the campy side enough to make this a potential favorite of someone I do not know. But I'm sure who is out there.

Missy, you got a little on your face there... a very little. I wear my sunglasses at night Just another typical Friday night for Cindy

Didja Notice? [some sources: IMDb]

• Chicken Heads are scary.
• Dickie Boy is played by an actress
• The jerky movement of the demons are created by cutting out every other frame and piecing it together (as they did in House on Haunted Hill).
• Embarrassing Goth pictures of you have a way of resurfacing
• Okay, these kids get freaked out before they even leave their own street. What wussies.
• Coolio's hair and head reminds me of a turnip
• Okay, that dog is pretty darn cute
• Hehe... porta potties talking to each other... great voice-overs!
• Wow, that was the dorkiest entrance EVER for a vamp-wannabe. This guy is so over-the-top pathetic, he's my new hero.
• Mo doesn't really put up a struggle during the ceremony
• Flying thongs and talking crucifixes -- this is why you don't do drugs, kids.
• People don't really react quickly to things here: the girl doesn't move out of the way of the five minute blood shower, and the nerd doesn't take off his blindfold or move away when he's being hit
• This town only has one street, two houses, a coffeshop, and the convent
• The nuns wheel the two tied up boys down the hall at the rate of one inch per hour... I don't think it's possible for them to be slower
• The girls say they're out of bullets, but Christine wears a bandoleer of shotgun shells... huh?

Is It Worth Staying Through End Credits?

We have no idea (but we'll let you know soon!)

Intermission! [some sources: IMDb]

Adrienne Barbeau has appeared in "The Fog", "Escape From New York", "Creepshow", "Swamp Thing" and more.

Groovy Quotes

Frijoli: Yo. This place is all Amityville and s**t. Red Rum...Red Rum...
Mo: Wrong movie Nimrod!

Mo: Nuns in flames, must have been f**kin beautiful.

Clarissa: My brother’s gonna be the new antichrist?
Christine: 'Fraid So.
Clarissa: Mom’s gonna be pissed.

Clarissa: It’s quiet.
Christine: Well, that’s never a good sign.

Frijole: Do you know karate? Cause that ass is kickin!

Clarissa: Maybe if we separate we’ll find her faster.
Freijole: Great - Shag, you go with Thelma, I’ll go with Daphne.

Mo: The Prince of Evil?!?! You work at f**kin Dairy Cream!

Clarissa: He’s a virgin
Christine: They f**king LOVE virgins. Damn demons, it’s always something with a virgin!

Nerd: [after getting a wedgie] Good one, Chas, that one went all the way up my ass!

Mo: Get off of me!
Jock: All the girls say that...
Mo: Yeah, I'm sure they do!

Mo: [watching the cops] Get it onnnn little piggy!

Nerd: You mean sex? With a GIRL?

Coven Leader: [to get the full effect, you have to imagine him saying this in an effeminite tone] Excuse me. Silence infidel, or if not, I... shall... personally, and with mine own hands... tear the tongue from your mouth, Fool!

DVD Review

The DVD has some very unique features, one of which is a commentary by Dickie Boy and Saul. It might even have been amusing. I couldn’t watch much more than five minutes of it before shutting it off, but hey, if you make it through, more power to you. The interviews with the cast and crew are wonderful and increased my enjoyment of the movie. Then there’s “Gore on Demand.” This is a feature that takes you to a few of the better “gore” scenes of the movie and shows you a bit of behind the scenes so you can see how it was done. With a small budget, some of these effects look pretty darn amazing (I did skip the eyeball part though, once was enough for me).

If you liked this movie, try these:

• The Evil Dead
• Evil Dead 2: Dead By Dawn
• Dead Alive