La monja (2005)

Director:

Luis de la Madrid

Writers:

Manu Díez (screenplay)
Jaume Balagueró (story)

Release Date:

4 November 2005 (Spain)

Genre:

Horror

Tagline:

Not all water is holy...

Plot:

A group of catholic school girls are victimized by a sadistic and jealous nun, "Sister Ursula". The girls drown the nun in a pool of "holy" water...

Plot Keywords:

Nun | Water | Revenge | Beheading | Barcelona Spain

Awards:

1 nomination

Cast

Anita Briem	...	Eve
Belén Blanco	...	Julia
Manu Fullola	...	Gabriel
Alistair Freeland	...	Joel
Cristina Piaget	...	Sister Úrsula
Paulina Gálvez	...	Zoe
Natalia Dicenta	...	Susan
Lola Marceli	...	Mary
Teté Delgado	...	Cristy (as Tete Delgado)
Oriana Bonet	...	Eulalia
Katrine Romming	...	Mary 17
Maia Jenkinson	...	Eulalia 17
Joana Rañé	...	Zoe 17
Gemma Martínez	...	Cristy 17
Meritxell Santamaria	...	Susan 17

Also Known As:

The Nun (Spain) (TV title) (USA) (DVD title)

MPAA:

Rated R for horror violence and language.

Runtime:

101 min | Argentina:105 min

Country:

Spain | UK

Language:

English

Color:

Color

Aspect Ratio:

2.35 : 1

Sound Mix:

Stereo | Dolby Digital

Certification:

USA:R | Portugal:M/16 | Singapore:NC-16 | Singapore:PG (edited version) | Malaysia:18PL (uncut version) | Malaysia:U (cut version) | Philippines:R-13 | Finland:K-15 | Germany:16 | Australia:MA (2006) | France:-12 | Italy:VM14 | Argentina:16 | Hong Kong:III

Filming Locations:

Barcelona, Cataluña, Spain

Company:

Fantastic Factory (Filmax)

Goofs:

Continuity: When the water is filling in the shower room at the end, the water is closer to the light fixture in one scene than it is in the next scene.

Quotes:

Joel: What is this, "I know what you did 18 summers ago"?

Movie Connections:

Referenced in El maquinista (2004)

Soundtrack:

Me Falta el Aliento

A Nutshell Review: The Nun

This week's surprise screening at GV turned out to be the horror movie The Nun (La Monja). Seriously, I think that horror movies should try and come up with more imaginative titles, even though the story's about the character as described in the title. Who knows, soon we'll have spinoffs like The Monk, The Priest, and others belonging to various religious sects.

The basic premise goes very simply, that a ghoul dressed up in a Nun garb (so that it can lay claim to the title) goes around killing ex-convent girls. There seemed to be some sort of conspiracy involved, as the daughter of one of the victims, Eva (played by an eye candy Icelandic Anita Briem), goes on to discover, with the help of a few good friends, like a rip off of I Know What You Did Last Summer (mentioned also, by the way).

So as the body count increases, it's a race against time for our emotionally scarred (aren't they always?) heroine to uncover the truth and save the day. Delving into the sins of the mothers, the movie did the unthinkable, that with a dream sequence as the introduction. I hate dream sequences as it's a pretty cheap technique if not done correctly, and there are a couple of them in the movie.

In part, the movie played at times like Ju-On gone wrong with the plenty of Dark Water references, and they could have retitled this Unholy Water, for the circumstances and plot points in the movie. However, there are plot holes abound, so don't be looking into the storyline too deeply. You'd come to expect the standard textbook twists towards the end about the sadistic nun, and sets which look like they can rival recent Thai horror movie Dorm.

The acting's pretty forgettable, with the cast speaking in perfect heavily accented English. And since most of them are pleasing to the eye, the story must weave in a love scene in the middle of a witch-hunt. What gives? Hello, got hantu, still got mood ah? Then again, the ghoul is a pretty cheap animated/SFX which has a built in AI of popping up every now and then, in various fashion, just to elicit screams from timid audiences. The characters also break every unwritten rule in the Do-Nots in horror lore, so you know and expect their just desserts.

Can you possibly enjoy this movie? Sure you can. Just ensure that you're watching it in a full house (should be easy, since local folks are suckers for anything remotely horrific), and laugh at those who are so jumpy they scream at every "frightening" scene. It's pretty fun, and adds to the atmosphere, besides what's going on the screen. Surround sound doesn't even come close.

Think of it as watching an episode of Scooby Doo without the wisecracks, and it's a pity that the gory moments in the movie had to be censored for a PG rating. Those could possibly have been the best bits, now left rotting on the censor's floor board.