The Convent (2000)

Cast: Joanna Canton, Richard Trapp and Dax Miller

Writer: Chaton Anderson

Director: Mike Mendez

Last night (or this morning rather) I got the pleasure of watching "The Convent" Directed by Mike Mendez for the first. I haven't heard much about the film, but seeing as how I'm a fan of "The Gravedancers" and am Eagerly awaiting a DVD release of "Killers" (as are many I think including Mike Himself) I jumped on the chance to watch this and to no surprise, I LOVED IT!

The story starts out in the 1960's, where a hot young bad ass walks into a convent and starts fucking up Nuns, set's them and fire and unleashing a hail of gunfire on them as well. YES THIS IS RIGHT IN THE BEGINNING! The film then Jumps 40 yrs later and introduces us to our cast, whom are a group of college students trying to tag up the convent for their frat to beat out another frat. You have all the right cliche's for an excellent B-Movie masterpiece. You have the token black jock, the annoying cheerleader, the nerdy virgin, the wigger, the average girl, her asshole boyfriend, and the goth chick.

These young folks go to venture the convent, speak of the legends and start to look around before cops arrive and tell them to come on out. Goth girl tells wigger to say she ran off cause she's on probation and she'd make it "worth his while" and hides in the convent to wait for things to blow over. The Scooby kids meet two awesome yet odd cops played by THE MAN BILL FUCKING MOSELEY and COOLIO, yes COOLIO. Who scare the shit out of the gang and send them running. We watch as the cute goth girl becomes abducted only to find her kidnappers are a group of pretentious pseudo satanist that take themselves WAY too seriously. They plan her as a sacrifice after hearing her early on mention she was a virgin whom was, get this "saving herself for Marilyn Manson". And so they sacrifice her only to awake the demons that roam with in the convent.

This film in my opinion is EPIC! It's "Night of The Demons" on crack in a great way, and is also a nice take on the demon genre in general. The characters are fun, the script is funny and is right up to par for any fan of fun B-Movies. It's nicely directed and of course dishes out a good amount of blood and gore. My only complaint in all honesty was that it ended and was a little short, but the ending was hilarious. Wishes? A sequel definitely joining the great writing of Chaton Anderson and the great direction of Mike Mendez.

Overall, if you have the same taste as I, this film is definitely for you, it has cheesy one liners here and there, but the atmosphere of the film as well as the pace won't make you mad at them. I laughed my ass off and enjoyed this film from beginning to end. I'm not trying to mark out for Mendez, but I really think he is extremely underrated and needs more credibility and can't wait to see more from him. I'd also love to see more films written by Anderson as well, cause the clever, fun of this film made me feel warm inside. With that said I rate this epic Five dead Nuns out of Five....

5/5