Editorials
While We Wait for ‘The Nun,’ Here Are 6 Other Horror Nuns That Brought the Nightmares
For every Sister Mary Helena in Nightmare on Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors doing her part to warn Freddy’s victims, it seems as though there’s a Valak or a Sister Jude Martin (American Horror Story) to remind us of the dark side of the archetype. In the 18th century, when both the Gothic novel was born and anti-Catholic furor was still high in Britain, both reactionary and radical authors linked Catholicism to concepts of Old World tyranny: the gated communities of monasteries and convents seemed like hidden worlds hiding secret, sexual depredations and tyrannical horrors. Early horror novels like Matthew Lewis’s The Monk (1796) and Charles Robert Maturin’s Melmoth the Wanderer (1820) featured convents that were less religious institutions and more tortuous prisons that would have brought a smile to the lips of the Marquis de Sade or the clients in a Hostel film.
But why do nuns continue to hold their own in the modern imagination? Perhaps it’s still the threat of religious extremism; perhaps as well the intimation of rigid tyranny behind the very structure of convent life, so alien to freer secular or spiritual lives; or perhaps it’s the shocking contrast between the purity that a nun is imagined to represent and the darkness and violence of the genre.
Whatever the reason, nuns have continued to haunt horror literature and cinema – and while you wait for the arrival of Corin Hardy’s The Nun and Aislinn Clarke’s The Devil’s Doorway, here are six of the genre’s scariest nuns to pray by your bedside…
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The Blind Nun in The Sentinel (1977)
Before the iconic blind nun on the cover of The Devil Inside (2012) and the blind, ominous Sister Death in Verónica (2017), The Sentinel firmly established the “blind nun trope” as an eerie visual motif. To say anything further besides providing the haunting still above would spoil the gloriously twisted ending of this classic, cult horror film. But with a movie that features appearances from Chris Sarandon, Burgess Meredith, Ava Gardner, Christopher Walken, John Carradine, and Jeff Goldbum as well as one of the creepiest twist endings in horror history, do you really need any further incentive?
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Mother Ursula in The Monk (1796, 2011)
There’s evil and then there’s Mother Ursula, the head prioress in Matthew Lewis’s horror novel The Monk and French director Dominik Moll’s 2011 adaptation, played to grim perfection by Geraldine Chaplin. It’s her devout way or the highway and Heaven help you if you’re a novice in her convent and fail to keep to her rules. When she discovers that one of her nuns is pregnant, she devises a punishment so cruel that the 2011 film adaptation actually mitigates it somewhat, to avoid shocking the sensibilities of 21st century audiences, keeping it to a Cask of Amontillado-style live entombment. In the original 1796 novel, the victim and her soon-to-be-born child’s fate is far, far grislier and prolonged. “I wish not for your death,” says Mother Ursula, “but your repentance.” As Pet Sematary’s Jud says, “Sometimes dead is better.”
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Sister Mary Eunice in American Horror Story: Asylum (2012)
“We’re all going to be together in the dark watching The Sign Of The Cross, a movie full of fire, sex, and the death of Christians. What fun!” No one has had as much fun with the wicked nun archetype as Lily Rabe in the role of Sister Mary Eunice. Her complicated plot arc takes her from the shy innocent to the knowing seducer; she is a perfect example of the compelling dichotomy of purity and decadence that this particular archetype offers to the genre. Though her demonic possession is played unflinchingly for terror, there is also something perversely entertaining in the way that she entraps the sadistic Dr. Arden and the Monsignor into her hellish designs, both caught off guard by her 180 degree turn from submissive innocence to aggressive diabolism. Also, let’s face it: no one on this list would be as much fun on movie night as Sister Mary.
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Sister Jeanne in The Devils (1971)
Some of the best horror villains exist in that queasy space betwixt monster and villain. Sister Jeanne in Ken Russell’s Gothic nightmare The Devils is such a villain. Persecuted and maddened by repression, she finds escape first in quasi-religious erotic fantasies, then in feigning possession and accusing the priest whom she lusts after of sorcery. In the end, she is tortured by her lies and by the tyrannical State almost as thoroughly as her victim, but this doesn’t alleviate the ultimate carnage that her own agonized repression causes. Definitely not a lady whose eye you’d want to catch.
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The Unknown Nun in Vertigo
Like the Nun in The Sentinel, not much can be said of her role in Vertigo, without giving away one of the most twisted moments not only in Hitchcock’s oeuvre but in all of cinematic history. Suffice it to say that this moment gave me nightmares for a week when I was a kid and, in a film rife with its own nightmarish dream logic and symbolism, serves as a fitting emblem of a cruel, unforgiving, and inescapable karma.
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The Bleeding Nun in The Monk
Unfortunately, Dominik Moll’s otherwise fantastic adaptation of The Monk completely omits not only one of the most chilling ghostly nuns in horror history, but the very first instance of this archetype in popular horror literature. Lewis’s tale of a murderous, licentious ghostly nun whose bloodstained form appears nightly at the bedside of Don Raymond captured the public imagination so powerfully that it was frequently anthologized on its own in horror anthologies.
It also contains, perhaps, the first truly chilling jump scene in horror literature, in this conversation between her victim and the exorcist:
“I have the power of releasing you from your nightly visitor; but this cannot be done before Sunday. On the hour when the Sabbath morning breaks, spirits of darkness have least influence over mortals. After Saturday the Nun shall visit you no more.”
“May I not enquire,” said I, ‘”by what means you are in possession of a secret which I have carefully concealed from the knowledge of everyone?”
“How can I be ignorant of your distress, when their cause at this moment stands beside you?”
I started. The Stranger continued.
“Though to you only visible for one hour in the twenty-four, neither day or night does She ever quit you; Nor will She ever quit you till you have granted her request.”
Pleasant dreams…
College kids, strippers and vampires—those were Donald P. Borchers’ only requirements when he approached Richard Wenk about writing and directing a movie for New World Pictures. As requested, Wenk cooked up Vamp (1986), a tailor-made blend of the decade’s teen movie craze as well as its horror boom.
Grim and earnest stories were still very much a part of the ’80s horror landscape, yet Vamp is something of a comedy. One difference between it and, say, Saturday the 14th, though, is the former avoids using schtick. Wenk’s movie proves that horror comedies also don’t have to subtract thrills from their recipes. Of course, it takes a minute before reaching that point; college antics and culture shocks preface this one macabre misadventure.
Vamp‘s initial setup is apt for a typical college-set, sex-driven comedy; to bribe their way into a fraternity house, two pledges (Chris Makepeace, Robert Rusler) go looking for some adult entertainment. Without wasting time on any further exposition, the characters embark on an all-in-one-night trip that quickly detours into terror.
To procure their elusive MacGuffin—a stripper willing to gyrate for some frat boys—Keith (Makepeace) and AJ (Rusler), plus a third wheel named Duncan (Gedee Watanabe), trade the safety of their remote college campus for the seediness of some unnamed city. The setting is recognizably L.A. by day, but as soon as night falls, downtown, along with the characters, slips into a kind of surreal universe. Director of photography Elliot Davis gave this early entry on his prolific résumé an unusual yet distinctive look; that Mario Bava-esque, magenta-green lighting is omnipresent, so much so that it’s almost its own character.
Chris Makepeace and Robert Rusler in Vamp
The faint comparisons to Martin Scorsese’s After Hours are merited, although not just because of Vamp’s distinguishing nighttime aesthetic. Save for the primary characters, the supporting roles in Wenk’s movie are also quite colorful and transactional in their behavior. The difference here, though, is the additional urge to ruin Keith and his friends at every turn. Some of that harm is humorous and tolerable enough, whereas the moment Vamp dishes out its first fatality, it’s abundantly clear how this movie qualifies as horror.
Vamp falls into that category of horror movie that reveals its genre with a scream rather than a series of whispers. The opening scene can function as a hint of what lies ahead—things are not at all what they appear to be—but otherwise, Wenk is more than happy to hold off on the horror. When that time does come, though, it catches the viewer off guard. In addition to the pure shock value is that sudden decision to upend the movie’s foremost feature. Or so it would seem.
If afraid of major spoilage, those new to Vamp would be wise to stop reading here. There’s just no skirting around the fact that the central fellowship in this buddy movie hits a serious snag when AJ is killed. That development causes the story to become more of a “long, bad night” journey for Keith and his romantic interest. So while Wenk scores points for subverting expectations, there is also a touch of sadness in his decision. Because if Vamp does anything well, it’s making the characters likable.
Something that comes easily to Vamp—and other teen horror movies from this same era—is its ability to invent young characters worth caring about, or at the very least, are interesting and not so immediately off-putting. More impressive is how Wenk did all this without actually fleshing out those characters. Still and all, Keith and his kind are a grade above cookie-cutter, and in some cases, aren’t completely devoid of growth.
Grace Jones in Vamp
Vamp appeals with an assorted cast of characters. No two are the same, nor are they operating on the same wavelength. The cinematically extroverted AJ, whose actor conveyed charm and vulnerability in near equal amounts, comes alive when he’s at his most undead. Makepeace then makes the chronically cautious Keith a sympathetic fellow, even as he’s more and more affected by the night’s bizarre events. Meanwhile, Duncan is indeed the designated loser of the whole bunch, but Watanabe still manages to humanize him. As a bonus, the role didn’t require him to pull a Long Duk Dong.
As for Dedee Pfeiffer, she is plain adorable as the mysterious After Dark server nicknamed “Amaretto”. She spends all night fixing her dress strap while at the same time trying to get Keith to remember how he knows her. As their offbeat romance grows, it becomes another highlight of this movie. Whether or not Pfeiffer’s character is really a vampire also creates some welcome tension in the story.
Like a lot of its contemporaries, Vamp went on to become a bit of a cult classic. That current status is determined by several factors, but without a doubt, the casting of Grace Jones is the most considerable. The image of her writhing on that unique-looking chair, a Keith Haring original, springs to mind whenever this movie is brought up.
Chris Makepeace, Billy Drago and Paunita Nichols in Vamp
Prior to that first display of unequivocal horror, local vampire queen Katrina (Jones) took to the stage and delivered a strip show like no other. One would expect nothing less from that renowned model and performance artist. By now reports of Jones’ tardiness on set are no secret, yet it’s also hard to deny her commitment to the part of Katrina. It was, in fact, Jones who took charge of her character’s appearance—on top of Haring painting her body and that now-iconic chair, she had Andy Warhol handle her costuming. And not too many actors could seize a room’s attention without saying a single line of dialogue.
In 2022, Vamp received a retrospective novelization from Encyclopocalypse. This literary union of preexisting source material—Wenk’s original screenplay—and new ideas from author Christian Francis amounts to a more comprehensive visit to the After Dark Club. The basic story there is no different than what’s shown on screen; however, Francis gets creative with the characters’ origins and designs, and he enhances a number of key scenes.
The novelization expands on the urban and social decay of the main setting, and supplies a background for the After Dark Club. Sandy Baron’s character, Katrina’s emcee and familiar, is given ample motivation for sticking around; up until the fiery end, he is loyal to his friend and former business partner “Squeak”, who looks like he was “fed through a combine harvester, and left as nothing more than a heap of mangled remains”. Then there is Billy Drago’s character Snow, the leader of a street gang called The Dragons. His reason for menacing Keith and AJ is more altruistic than in the movie; he and his peers act tough to scare off any potential food for the vampires.
Lisa Lyon in Vamp
If not for all the backstories, Francis’ Vamp would be a hell of a lot shorter. Instead, this tie-in read dives into how AJ met Keith—the orphaned Anthony Joseph hailed from a broken home back in Brooklyn—and how their friendship flourished over the years. Keith’s archership is no longer just an assumed part of his entire being; it’s a confidence-building extracurricular for a boy who got picked on before coming into the protection of the new kid in town. These supplemental, in-depth looks at the protagonists, plus their close connection, are maybe unnecessary. The movie already did a fair and concise job of addressing their platonic intimacy without the need for flashbacks and insights, specifically in that scene where AJ lays it all out as he sacrifices himself.
Where the novelization gets off course is its approach to the minor characters. Intermittently backstorying the likes of Katrina’s indentured servants, Seko (Leila Hee Olsen) and Vlad (Brad Logan), ends up disturbing the flow of the writing. Was it absolutely essential that readers know Vlad was the Grand Duke of the House of Romanov, or how Snow’s accomplice Maven (Paunita Nichols) became so dentally challenged? No, not really. However, one’s mileage with these random biographies may vary.
The novelization is a more substantial experience, but for a movie like Vamp, less is more. And as plentiful as they are, it never simply coasts on its campy charms, either. The character work sits comfortably in that realm between cursory and meticulous, the script is sharper than first realized, and Greg Cannom’s vampire makeup is straightforward yet effective. Most of all, the movie didn’t squander its out-of-the-box concept. Richard Wenk made his vision of a “comic nightmare in which just about anything that can go wrong does” come true, and it is very enjoyable.
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