10 Best Nunsploitation Horror Movies

In the real world, the life of a nun is simple and peaceful. She prays privately, goes to church, and engages in charity activities. In horror movies, things tend to get spooky and complicated. On the screen, the women of God regularly battle supernatural phenomena or evil people within their own churches and convents. Some also battle inner demons, a development that tends to arise from sexual suppression or general curiosity about the outside world.

The trend of inserting nuns into bizarre situations began as early as the ‘60s and has remained ever since. The subgenre is now commonly known as nunsploitation. These kinds of films are characterized by perversity and isolation, with prison-like convents as the main settings. Catholicism is also a recurring theme, with some stories pointing out the church’s flaws, and others reinforcing the idea that the idea that the world becomes a better place when everyone sticks to religion.

10 Dark Waters (1993)

Curiosity is the force that drives the plot of Dark Waters. After her father dies, Elizabeth (Louise Salter), travels to a remote island convent to find out why the old man consistently funded it throughout his adult years.

Now that he is dead, she is considering cutting the money supply and channeling the dollars to clothes and vacations, but she is also keen on honoring the memory. She thus heads there to see if the nuns truly deserve the donations. Once she arrives, she encounters all kinds of horrors.

A Prix Du Public Winner

Lovecraftian horror movies hardly come better than Dark Waters. After all, it was made by Mariano Baino, a filmmaker so good that he was honored with the rare “Extraordinary Ability Green Card” by the United States government. Additionally, the spooky nun flick won the Prix Du Public (a prize awarded by attendees of the Locarno Film Festival).

After watching only the first 15 minutes, one gets to appreciate this bountiful tableau of religious mayhem. There is hardly any dialogue in the first act. Just a hyper-stylized sound structure that features crying babies. The twists also come in fast and heavy, and by the end of the film, Elizabeth has gone off the rails and morphed into an Undertaker-eyed nun.

9 School of the Holy Beast (1974)

Norifumi Suzuki’s School of the Holy Beast, aka, The Transgressor, has no ghosts or jump scares, yet it’s plastered with creepy scenes. As soon as the 17-year-old Maya (Yumi Takigawa) discovers that her mother used to be a nun and that she died at the Sacred Heart Convent, she infiltrates the place, eager to find out what happened.

There, she encounters all kinds of strange masochistic happenings, from nuns who whip each other while naked to lecherous priests who don’t have an evangelical bone in their bodies.

Torture-Fest on Holy Grounds

Sinful nuns getting tied with thorny stems and getting whipped with roses? The staunchest of genre fans will delight at School of the Holy Beast’s excessive weirdness and the excessive liters of blood being spilled. Overall, it is the kind of horror film that rides more on gore than fright.

There are plenty of strange characters, notably a Rasputin-like priest with a lion’s mane of hair, who believes he has the whole concept of good and bad figured out. Strange that he leans more toward the latter. The set and costume designs are pleasant to the eyes too, while the music is nothing short of transfixing.

8 Immaculate (2024)

Immaculate is a hair-raising tale that merges religion and science. In it, Cecilia (Sydney Sweeney) becomes ecstatic when she is offered a position at a convent in Italy. She feels it’s a calling, having survived a drowning incident years earlier.

After a few days in the covenant, she gets pregnant, a development that baffles her because she has never had intercourse. Upon doing some digging, she discovers that there is a priest who took a blood DNA sample from the cross where Jesus was crucified and is attempting to clone a new messiah via artificial insemination.

One of the Most Creative Horror Plots

Director Michael Mohan and writer Andrew Lobel ought to be lauded because no one had ever thought of such a plot before. Logically, there ought to be DNA in the cross on which Jesus was crucified and if cloning is a thing, then making another Christ is a possibility. How the film blends biological concepts and the scriptures is admirable.

The real horror comes when other nuns get jealous of Cecilia for being the new Virgin Mary and try to kill her. Cecilia keeps trying to escape too, resulting in rather tense chase-and-capture moments.

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7 Dark Habits (1983)

In Dark Habits (Entre Tinieblas), cabaret singer, Yolanda (Cristina Sánchez Pascual), goes on the run when her boyfriend dies after consuming heroin that she gave him. To avoid getting captured, she seeks refuge at a local convent known to offer shelter for the condemned. Lucky for her, the Mother Superior is a fan of her performances. Soon, Yolanda discovers dark secrets about the place she now calls home.

A Circus of a Convent

There is plenty to both be amused and bemused by the habits of the nuns in Dark Habits. They have a man-eating tiger as a pet, and each of them has a weird moniker. There is Sister Manure, Sister Snake, Sister Rat of the Sewers, and Sister Damn, among others. Their extracurricular activities are also shocking, to say the least. Some write erotica as a hobby, while others prefer to inject heroin all day.

The biggest chunk of the film’s dread comes from Mother Superior’s hallucinations and erratic actions. And as deranged as the atmosphere is, it’s hard to keep the eyes off the screen, thanks to an amazing performance by Julieta Serrano as the nun-in-chief.

6 Mother Joan of the Angels (1960)

Mother Joan of the Angels traces the activities of the Catholic priest, Father Suryn, after he is ordered to investigate a case of demonic possession at a 17th-century nearby convent. The townfolk root for him to solve the issue, especially after rumors begin swirling around claiming that the nuns burnt their priest at the stake for sexually tempting them. To curb the menace, Father Suryn sets his eyes on the head of the convent, Mother Joan.

Laying the Foundation for a Subgenre

From a doubtful priest to endless screams, Mother Joan of the Angels has most elements that are now commonly used in horror movies about exorcisms. The film might not be as popular as The Rite or The Exorcist, but it’s arguably more spellbinding.

The stakes are way higher because Mother Joan has eight demons. Father Suryn understands that his work is cut out for him, so he makes adequate preparations. His practice sessions almost play out like a training montage in a sports film. Will he do it? He fails spectacularly, but this leads to a wild twist. By the time the climax arrives, Suryn has morphed from a priest to a slasher villain.

5 Flavia the Heretic (1974)

Flavia (Florinda Bolkan) from Flavia the Heretic isn’t pleased with her career as her nun. She flees the covenant, only to be captured, tortured, and returned. While wallowing in misery, she forms a friendship with the feminist, Sister Agatha, who hates men and aspires to be the first woman Pope. Disgruntled, she eventually teams up with Muslim warriors who have invaded the town and goes after everyone who has ever made her suffer.

Women Against Men

In Flavia the Heretic, director Gianfranco Mingozzi creates a solid gallery of eerie imagery. The nunsploitation flick borders on toxic feminism, but the anti-male agenda is somehow justifiable. By the time Flavia concludes all men are demons, she has seen it all. She has watched her father behead her lover and a Duke raping a young girl.

This thus belongs to the same taxonomy of bloody revenge movies like I Spit on Your Grave and The Last House on the Left. It’s debatable whether the film makes a good case against patriarchy and chauvinism, but it sure hits the mark in the gore department.

4 Alucarda (1977)

Alucarda opens with a backstory about Alucarda (Tina Romero), a girl who has grown up inside a fortress-like convent for most of her life because her mother feared she’d be possessed by demons if she grew up in the outside world. One day, a girl named Justine, who happens to be her agemate, arrives at the convent. The two become tight friends and begin engaging in mischief. One day while out in the woods, they invoke Satan, causing them to become possessed.

A Filthy Scream-Fest

Screaming has always been an essential part of horror, and a lot of that happens here. Besides that, audiences will quickly recognize the effort put into the costume designs. Every nun has spots of blood and dirt on her white dress, creating an overall feel of filth and decay.

There is no explanation for the laxity in sanitation. It all remains a mystery, proving the characters engage in more mischief than is being shown. There are plenty of powerful scenes too, notably one where Alacurda goes to confession only to tempt the priest and make him question his faith. And, with her dancing eyes, actress Tina Romero sure does a great job of conveying the evil buried inside her character’s soul.

3 The First Omen (2024)

The First Omen takes viewers back to the early ‘70s. American novitiate Margaret Daino (Nell Tiger Free) has just taken a new job at a church in Rome. Everything initially seems well, but after a few weeks, she uncovers a conspiracy by some church members to create the Antichrist so as to drive fear in the public and curb the rising secularism trend. Worse still, she finds out that she has been chosen to carry the Antichrist in her womb.

Extreme Solutions to Normal Problems

A horror movie that begins with a priest’s skull getting cracked open after a pipe falls on his head is definitely worthy of the hype. After the shocking opening scene, The First Omen never slows down. Curious, Margaret keeps seeking answers, and she uncovers a plot so deep it makes many of the best conspiracy movies look tame. From images of dysmorphic babies to frequent displays of the number of the beast, the movie keeps serving scenes that might trigger nightmares.

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2 The Devils (1971)

The Devils is set in 17th-century France, with events revolving around the sexually progressive Father Grandier (Oliver Reed). The priest gathers a large following among the nuns who feel sexually starved, as well as members of the public. Sadly, he gains an enemy in the form of Cardinal Richelieu (Christopher Logue), who feels that Grandier might grow more popular than mission. Driven by jealousy, he goes on a mission to destroy the priest’s reputation.

Too Graphic for the Screen?

As powerful a film as The Devils is, censorship boards weren’t pleased by it. Consequently, it received an X rating in the UK and the United States. Additionally, it was condemned by the vatican and banned in numerous countries. In the few countries where it was shown, it was heavily edited.

The outrage isn’t particularly uncalled for, since the film is grotesque on many levels. Another scene shows a nun touching herself with a charred bone from Grandier’s skeleton following his burning at the stake. Obviously, director Ken Russell was asking for trouble, but by taking such huge risks, he made what is arguably the subgenre’s best film.

1 The Nun (2018)

The Nun is known as a spin-off of The Conjuring 2 and serves as the fifth installment in the larger The Conjuring shared universe. Events kick off in 1952 Romania, with two nuns at Saint Cartha’s monastery getting attacked by a demon dressed as a nun. One of them is killed, and the other hangs herself shortly after fleeing. Disturbed by the events, the Vatican sends Father Burke (Demián Bichir) and Sister Irene (Taissa Farmiga) to investigate.

A Perfect Fit for the Franchise

The Conjuring has been a solid franchise so far, and The Nun maintains the high standards set by the previous films. From a quick glance, the film might seem like a basic ghost story, and it sure is.

However, it differentiates itself from the back by featuring a different problem-solving approach. Here, the protagonists don’t rely on prayer. Nor do they keep running for their lives. Their weapon is a vial containing the actual Blood of Christ. In line with that, the most iconic scene is that of Sister Irene gargling on the blood and spitting it on the demon’s face.