2. Flavia the Heretic (1974)
Go Florinda! Go Florinda! Go Florinda! My favourite Eurotrash actress Florinda Balkan stars as Flavia, a one woman Middle Ages female rights crusader! Condemned to a convent as a young girl and beaten into submission by the nun's regime, Flavia questions why women are put in an inferior position and humiliated. She runs away with a Jewish friend, but they are captured and Flavia is brutally whipped. When Muslims invade the coast, Flavia has her chance for revenge against the convent that degraded her and also against her father. The Shameless Screen Entertainment release has the tag line 'Flay Me Baby One More Time!'. Whilst it is laudable they picked Flavia for a release, the violence and gore in this film is not as sensationalistic as posited on the DVD cover. It is cruel and realistic, not in the slightest bit exploitative and the film as a whole is downbeat and depressing. I am probably doing the film a disservice by labelling it nunsploitation as there is barely any sex and the stringent feminist tone is a world away from the usual decadence found in films about nuns. Nevertheless I have included it as an interesting counterpart to all the nuns running around in their scanties and to highlight a bloody good film that deserves a wider audience.