The Convent (2000)

What do you get when you mix Evil Dead and Night of the Demons?  Well that's what it feels like the creators of this were trying to go for with this tongue in cheek demon nun flick.  The Convent is a fun little movie that feels like it got very little coverage when released and mostly forgotten.  It's a movie full of b-movie cheese, guns, demons, blood n guts, and neon colors.  

Preach sister! 

The Convent might have not gotten a major release in part due to it's opening and the climate of the time of release so close after the Columbine massacre.  The film opens with a mass shooting scenario so that probably got this shoved straight to video.  Not to say that this was a very fancy production, as it's clearly super low budget, but that never hurt movies of it's kind.  We didn't need big production values to love our horror classics like The Evil Dead which this movie is clearly heavily influenced by.  What does stick out about this movie though is just how 90's everything looks.  Remember Batman Forever and how everything was full of neon colors and black light effects?  Yea this movie is packed with all that and really hurts the whole visual aesthetic of the film.  The movie at times feels like it's being filmed in a Spencer Gifts is just really ugly.

I'll be back

So the movie is centered around a haunted Convent, and it's demon possessed history.  Our main cast of characters are your traditional group of college teens who decide to spend the night at the local spooky run down abandoned convent.  You got all your typical cast of nerds, jocks, druggies, hot chicks, and of course the meek nice girl who is destined to be our final girl.  It all goes as expected as the party doesn't last very long.  The movie is meant to be cheesy clearly, but that makes it difficult to really know if the actors are just bad, or if it's all on purpose.  Some really painful performances in this and it gets even worse when a cult of over the top Satan worshipers show up and kick off our little demon party night by accident.  They are clearly played up for comedy, but the cult leader and his minions are just way too much really and needed to take it down a few notches.  But anyways, if you've seen the previously mentioned Night of the Demons or Evil Dead, you know what to expect.  One by one our cast is taken over by demons and chaos ensues.  This is where the movie kicks up the black light usage as the makeup effect they decided to use to show the demon possession involves lots of glowing neon makeup.  More traditional makeup and gore effects would have been much more appreciated but instead you got this really weird looking film that just also gives it such a dated look.  Maybe they wanted to stand out from other similar films, yet the movie constantly just seems to try and copy Sam Raimi's style of filming with quick camera pans, zoom effects, and other camera tricks.  It all kind of feels like a bad late 90's music video really.

How do you kill a demon?  AK-47 apparently

Our cast of characters are all idiots who are easily dispatched by the demons, and they have to be because the demons aren't particularly good at killing or very threatening.  The humor for the most part falls flat sadly, and the demons themselves are pretty boring and just come at the characters in zombie like fashion.  In  Evil Dead, Demons, Night of the Demons, and other similar movies, you had all kinds of personalities and gimmicks for the various demon possessed characters, but here they don't do a whole lot of anything but glow in the dark... spooky!  The movie also includes several other "bigger" named actors and horror alumni such as Bill Mosely, Coolio, and Adrienne Barbeau.  Everyone hams it up hardcore in this for good or bad.  Now Adrienne Barbeau is great in this, as she plays the total bad ass demon slayer who has to rescue everyone as well as our plot exposition device.  The gore isn't anything special even though lots of dumb ass teens get murdered, and even when the demons are being blown apart, it's in rivers of neon yellow and orange goop.  The movie ramps up greatly once Adrienne's character enters the picture with her Ash like persona.  Demons aren't that threatening when you got lots of guns apparently.

I'll swallow your soul!

The Convent can be fun, but it never hits any of the highs of other similar movies.  The film is very simple and derivative, trying to set itself apart with doubling down on the cheese factor with mixed results.  It's an ok little cheese fest but it's pretty forgettable sadly.  The movie is just all the tropes you expect from a movie like this, except with it's weird neon visuals and late 90's like feel.  The Convent doesn't stand out for any reason outside of watching Adrienne Barbeau blasting away at demons with big guns.  Now clearly that sounds amazing, and it does have it's moments but overall the movie is incredibly mediocre.  If you needed something new for a bad movie night or need something not overly serious, then The Convent is probably worth a viewing.