Nun of That started its life as a quickly put together spoof trailer of 70's exploitation films as part of the annual "48 Hour Film Project" where filmmakers get together and try to completely produce something in two days. Obviously happy with their work and the response to it, Scorpio Film Releasing decided to mount a feature-length version and the results are a retro styled, over-the-top, and incredibly satisfying riff on drive-in flicks, religion, and Death Wish styled action.

I was sold on the concept right from the opening sequence where a nun hit woman posing as a stripper in a mob owned club proceeds to pull an Uzi from under her habit and gun down as many stereotyped Italian thugs as she can before being killed herself. From there we meet Sister Kelly (Sarah Nicklin) who suffers from having a huge temper and finds herself being transferred to a less-than-desirable Church. After kicking the Hell out of some common street thugs, she's visited by some fellow nuns who proceed to shoot her in the chest with a shotgun.

Looks like dying is the only way Sister Kelly can be recruited to join the Order of the Black Habit, who have been trained as assassins and chosen by Jesus (Michael Reed) himself to return to Earth and wipe out various scum. It's during Kelly's visit to Heaven that director Richard Griffin and his co-writer/producer Ted Marr start the first of many digs at religion as our first glimpse at the almighty J.C. is during an awesomely bizarre song and dance number that includes a crippled nun getting healed and busting out with some breakdancing. And that's not all as a scene soon to follow has Kelly being trained in martial arts by Gandhi as he munches happily on a hamburger.

Once completing her training, Kelly is redubbed "Sister Wrath" and sent back to go after the mobsters that took out the nun she replaced who are lead by Momma Rizzo (Rich Tretheway in full on drag), an obvious nod to Shelley Winters and the baddie she played in 1973's Cleopatra Jones. Along her quest for religious revenge, Wrath also crosses paths with Jewish hitman Viper (David Lavaleee, Jr.) who's been hired by Momma and enjoys his work immensely using such weapons as a traditional Jewish skullcap (or Kippah) that has hidden blades and is used like a throwing star as well as getting in some girl-on-girl kissing with one of her fellow hit-nuns before a finale set at Momma's brothel that's loaded with testicle crushing, exploitation posters hanging on the walls, and an appearance of Troma head honcho Lloyd Kaufman as the Pope.

To say that Nun of That is one of the more absurd low-budget action comedies to come down the pipe in recent memory would be an understatement. It's so aware, and confident, in its parody and humour that I found myself thoroughly entertained for almost its entire running time. Sure, it can't quite keep up the outrageous tone of the first half-an-hour but as a huge fan of 70's drive-in and blaxploitation flicks I couldn't help from grinning ear-to-ear as Griffin and Marr piled on the satire.

What also helps this work as well is it does is having a cast who are completely and utterly in on the joke. Nicklin gets to have a lot of fun as the shotgun-touting and foul mouthed heroine, Tretheway channels Winters about as well as anyone could, and I really dug the extremely pretty Shanette Wilson as the afro sporting Sister Lust who talks jive and is always praying to Jesus to send her a man (or, more specifically, his penis) as payment for all the dirty work she does for him. There's really not a bad performance here and I enjoyed the fact that Griffin obviously let his actors run with the material, as there's definitely a feeling of improvisation to a lot of it. We also get cameos by the aforementioned Kaufman and B-movie favourite Debbie Rochon.

Since 2004's Feeding the Masses, Griffin and collaborator Marr have been busy delivering pleasing low-budget throwbacks including Creature from the Hillbilly Lagoon, Splatter Disco and Necroville. They also made a H.P. Lovecraft adaptation with Beyond the Dunwich Horror. With Nun of That they continue to deliver the goods bringing a highly entertaining homage that appreciates its source material and is willing to have fun with it. If you're any sort of fan of old school drive-in flicks, you have no excuse to not see this as soon as possible. (Chris Hartley, 2/16/10)

Directed By: Richard Griffin.
Written By: Richard Griffin, Ted Marr.

Starring: Sarah Nicklin, Alexandra Cipolla, Shanette Wilson, Ruth Sullivan.

Picture Ratio: 1.66:1 Widescreen.

Picture Quality: The transfer here is a clean looking one with a good handle of the colourful production design. There's nothing at all to complain about here.

Extras: Camp Motion Pictures and Scorpio have supplied us with a great handful of special features as we get the trailer, the original four-minute short that was entered in the film festival (it's a tad different but has a lot of the same ideas), a nicely done making-of featurette entitled "Breaking the Habit" that runs almost half-an-hour, and two commentary tracks.

The first commentary with Griffin, Parr and Ricahrd Rebelo (who played Vincent) is the more technical of the two but offers a lot of cool information on the making of the film and is a very listenable track. The second track, contains Griffin and enough cast members that I lost count of how many isn't quite as good even if it's a more lightweight and goofy listen. I just found there were a few too many moments of silence but I've definitely heard worse.

Visit Scorpio Film Releasing or Alternative Cinema for more info.