THE LAW of the church is inhuman, and it made me inhuman. Like you! protests Sister Julia in The Nuns Of Archangel, one of a series of so-called Nunsploitation films released under the Redemption banner by Gloucester-based Salvation Films, whose other labels include the appropriately-named Jezebel and Purgatory lines.
Redemption s other titles in the series include Killer Nun, Behind Convent Walls and Story Of A Cloistered Nun, but it is the sleeve of Nuns Of Archangel which best describes what are, in the main, well-produced cinematic wide-screen works.
Nunsploitation at its salacious and salivating best, it reads. Every habit covering a quivering Latin hard body yearning for a carnal coupling in the cloisters and each wanton soul another celestial orgasm waiting to happen. Or, to put it more prosaically, common to most of these films are elements such as lesbianism, masturbation, nymphomania, sadism and the external dominance and often cruel repression of the all-powerful, medieval-period Archbishop.
In the Redemption series we have about seventy-five titles, explains Salvation s Nigel Wingrove, and we expect to add another thirty or forty in the next eighteen months, some of which will be Nunsploitation. There are about twenty or thirty of them in Europe, including titles like The Devil Nun and Emmanuelle In The Convent.
It is Redemption s line of vampire films, however, which is an essential addition to any serious collector of the genre. From noted surrealistic director, Jean Rollin, are works like La Vampire Nue, Le Viol Du Vampire, Les Frisson Des Vampires and The Living Dead Girl, in addition to productions from cult director, Jess Franco, such as Succubus and Female Vampire, the latter featuring Countess Irina Karlstein who fellates her male lovers to death!
Nigel Wingrove was previously a magazine designer who tried his hand at film direction with Visions Of Ecstasy a tale of Carmelite nuns which was banned in the UK in 1989, as a result of which he not only lost the money he d invested in the project, but found difficulty in seeking further backing.
But I couldn t make my own, then I could certainly distribute the ones I liked, and that s how Salvation began, he explains. I liked some elements of the horror genre, although I wasn t a fanatic. Around the early Nineties, there were actually about a hundred horror fanzines in the UK with their own lingo and so on. I also discovered that a lot of the films were unavailable in the UK, so I borrowed twenty thousand pounds and, while that is not so much when you have to buy the rights as well, it did get me five films and, so, Redemption came about and it had a European bias.
We ve obviously been delighted with the response we ve added so many titles since then but we ve also been pirated a lot in the US and so are launching there this very year.
Available now throughout the UK and in selected outlets in Ireland, Wingrove s videos have also been featured on the Bravo satellite channel where Salvation s own spot is in its second season.
A lot of trends come and go, he says, but vampirism has stuck around since Nosferatu. Although mostly evolving from folk tales, the idea is also quite sexy and so they continue to be made.
Indeed, Channel 4 s recent season of more mainstream vampire films bears testament to Wingrove s sentiments, as does the recent remake of Dracula, the enduring success of Anne Rice s Interview With The Vampire, and Sky One s cult series showing each Sunday night, Forever Knight. Furthermore, vampire lovers who like an extra element of spice in their reading matter can also check out two collections published by Circlet Books, Blood Kiss: Vampire Erotica and Erotica Vampirica: Sensual Vampire Stories, in addition to two books of lesbian vampire stories entitled Daughters Of Darkness and Dark Angels on Cleis Press.
All this in the year 1998 which, by my calculations, is three times 666. Hmm . . . n
On the internet, Salvation Films are at www.redjez.demon.co.uk. Mail Order enquiries: Redemption Films Ltd., PO Box 50, Gloucester GL6 8YG, England.