Directing under a flurry of pseudonyms, Mattei churned out a hefty catalogue of everything-sploitation films on a tight budget, cycling through Nazis, women’s prisons, cannibals, rats, sharks, zombies, Vietnam, nuns, and multiple combinations therein. His blackened execution pyre stands in a barren field, a leitmotif driven like a stake through the heart of the film.

Our Lady of Lust (1972) - IMDb Our Lady of Lust (1972) - IMDb

Christensen sees a straight line from witch burnings to boiling-hot sanatorium showers, then draws it himself in the movie’s final moments with a simply executed transition that is genuinely breathtaking. It makes the job of the art historian that much more difficult because you have to examine possible avenues of meaning from a variety of perspectives.Fetishized images of naughty nuns; sisters whose fidelity to God is challenged by their own overwhelming libidinous desires, are common in many modern media but the cult film sub-genre affectionately known to its enthusiasts as the I think more common is what might be termed “folk culture” in the form of riddles or pastimes, and most of these references would have depended on the region where the book was made.

Naughty Nuns, Flatulent Monks, and Other Surprises of Sacred

But the fantasy of a nun gone bad is so common it can be ranked alongside sexy secretary or the naughty nurse.Of course, the latter are much more fun, and it is within these more expensively made tomes that we see some of the most memorable examples of marginalia. Looking at the history of the naughty nun motif, the Pope’s recent claims seem almost tame in comparison. Like Benedetta, which is directed by Paul Verhoeven (Showgirls), the tone is deliberately and boldly provocative. In the margins of a 14th-century French manuscript, a cheeky nun leads her monk boyfriend by the balls. In other words, it’s not the “primitive” peoples in the valley below coming undone in the absence of smog.