The Convent | 
| Director: Mike Mendez
Actors: Joanna Canton, Richard Trapp, Dax Miller, Renee Graham, Liam Kyle Sullivan
Studio: Lions Gate
Category: DVD
List Price: $14.98
Buy New: $6.28
You Save: $8.70 (58%)
New (17) Used (6) Collectible (1) from $4.71
Rating:  42 reviews
Sales Rank: 38396
Format: Closed-captioned, Color, Dvd, Ntsc
Language: English (Original Language)
Rating: R (Restricted)
Region: 1
Aspect Ratio: 1.33:1
Number Of Discs: 1
Running Time: 79 Minutes
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.2
Dimensions (in): 7.1 x 5.4 x 0.6
MPN: 71271
ISBN: 1588173860
UPC: 003139878632
EAN: 9781588173867
ASIN: B00005QJIF
Theatrical Release Date: 2000
Release Date: December 11, 2001
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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Description
1959. A Car pulls up in front of the St. Francis Boarding School for Girls and out steps Christine: young and pretty... and carrying a sawed off shotgun. She coolly marches into the chapel where the nuns are in deep prayer, blows them away one by one then douses the room with gasoline. With the flick of her cigarette, the room in engulfed.
40 years later the school has been shut down and the building condemned-perfect for local fraternity antics. But when a group of students break into the cursed basilica, none of them are prepared for the horror that awaits them in the convent!
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| Customer Reviews: Read 37 more reviews...
 Adrienne Barbeau, a motorcycle, a shotgun, and undead nuns March 6, 2009
MrRat
My personal favorite campy horror movie. I have to admit I like this even more than Evil Dead.
 Someone stop Mike Mendez before he films again! February 7, 2009
Robert P. Beveridge (Cleveland, OH)
The Convent (Mike Mendez, 2000)
I really should check these things out before I decide to watch them. Mendez was responsible, six years after this, for the execrable After Dark movie The Gravedancers. And what a surprise, he resurrected a lot of the cast from his earlier, even stupider movie, The Convent, for that one. Had I known this before I decided to try watching this dog, I would probably have not felt like I just killed, tortuously, the last seventy-nine minutes of my existence. At least The Convent does have a bit of humor, but it's not nearly enough to save this.
The story: the opening scene shows us a young woman walking into a convent, pulling out weaponry, and going to town. We skip to forty years later, and one of those hoary old horror film cliches--the college students breaking into the haunted building to do some partying. All is your typical brand of creepy until one of the partiers, Mo (Megahn Perry, one of many here who came back for The Gravedancers), runs across a band of amateur Satanists (led by the counter guy at the local Dairy Queen, no less; he provides most of the film's laughs) who are looking for a human sacrifice to initiate a new member. Of course, the ghosts are perfectly happy with a human sacrifice as well, and everything kinda blows up from there...
I am convinced, as I was when watching The Gravedancers, that somewhere within Mike Mendez there's a decent filmmaker straining to get out. There were so many places where this movie had potential and failed to live up to it (though it does succeed more than The Gravedancers managed to). A lot of this has to do with Chaton Anderson's script, which never does manage to do anything remotely unpredictable. The actors, for what it's worth, do the best they can with the material they're given, and some of them manage to do something close to shine here, if you take into account the material they're working with. (Again, I hasten to remind the reader that I'm comparing this to The Gravedancers rather than any other horror film I've seen this week.) Mendez looks sometimes like he's going to do something fun, but ultimately sticks with convention from start to finish. This could have been a much, much better film than it ended up being, but, as Mendez' more recent effort shows us, this could have been a whole lot worse as well. *
 Delightful Demonization... September 12, 2008
Bindy Sue Fronkuenschtein (under the rubble)
A group of wacky college kids decide to explore a local condemned convent building. It just so happens that, according to legend, a massacre occured in this very convent 40 years earlier. Our zany bunch of scholars simply must enter these accursed halls so they can party more effectively. Well, a group of rather un-sinister satanists are already inside, looking for a virgin to sacrifice to their dark lord. Uh-oh! Real demons emerge to spoil everyone's good time! The rest of the evening is spent trying to stay alive. Much blood and goo is sprayed. Enter Christine (Adrienne Barbeau!!!!), who is the same gal that slaughtered a sanctuary full of nuns and a priest on that fateful day in 1960! She is one tough babe, complete w/ motorcycle, a machete, and a huge cache of guns! Together w/ the sole surviving coed, Christine chops off many demonized heads and fires innumerable bullets. Her prayer near the film's explosive climax is what I want chiseled on my headstone! It's my favorite part of the movie. If a splendiforous gore-tacular w/ a goofy sense of humor sounds tasty to you, then THE CONVENT will fill your meat-wagon. Ms. Barbeau is still mighty fine... P.S.- Coolio is hilarious in his small role as a cop...
 So Dumb Its Hilarious! January 18, 2008
john m mozuke
You ever hear of a bad movie that people say is so stupid it is good? Well... THIS IS ONE OF THEM.
A very goofy, fun film with lots of gore. Reminiscent of Night of the Demons or The Evil Dead November 23, 2006
M. Celaschi (California)
A group of college students (cheerleader, goth, stoner, jock, virgin) decide to visit the old convent that was shut down due to a nasty incident that occurred. The goth chick, Mo, is captured by wannabe devil worshipers and they unwittingly unleash demons. As demons take over the bodies of nice girl Clorissa's boyfriend and friends, only Adult Christine (played awesomely well by Adrienne Barbeau) can stop them.
The opening scene sums up what is to follow. A beautiful babe in a school girl outfit and leather jacket with a cigarette hanging out of her mouth slaughters nuns and priests with a baseball bat, shotgun, and matches while "You Don't Own Me" plays. If you like this sequence, you will like the rest. Nuttiness ensues involving drugs, virgin sacrifices, forced abortions, gay Satanists, ditzy cheerleaders, and a pugnacious pug. Oh, and Coolio and Bill Moseley make appearances as no-good coppers.
It should be noted that this is one of the earlier works from The Gravedancers director, Mike Mendez and won the Audience Award at Fantafestival.
I have to say that my favorite scene (other than the opening) was set to the song "Dreamweaver" where stoner Biff gets high off shrooms and weed, hears Jesus talking to him, and tries unsuccessfully to mate with a demon.
There were incredibly likable characters you watched run around. Goth chick Mo (also in The Gravedancers) is adorable, Stoner dude Biff was hilarious, and Young/ Adult Christine oozed coolness. Unfortunately, none of these great characters get more than a half hour screen time. Instead, we are stuck with the good girl Clorissa.
As for the religious undertones, or in this case, way overtones, it is not preachy or sacrilegious. Mendez comes across as showing what is scary about the idea of having to conform within the confines of a convent.
I saw that the SFX received bad comments in other reviews, but I felt was okay overall. The make-up was a tad silly in some parts like glow in the dark veins and neon blood. However, the prosthetics used to raise the demons foreheads looked realistic and the "blood shower" scene was cool. The "Antichrist birth" scene was especially good considering this was low budget and it was only on screen for about one minute.
Favorite Quote: Satanist asks, "Are you the spawn of the Devil?" Nerd replies, "No, I'm a Lambda."... Or when Clorissa says, "My brother's going to be the next Antichrist? Mom's gonna be pi*ssed." DVD Extras: Audio Options (inc. Spanish Subtitles), Commentary, Behind the Scenes, 1 Deleted short Scene, and "Gore on Demand" which showed the death scenes up close and in slow motion.
Bottom Line: A very goofy, fun film with lots of gore. Reminiscent of Night of the Demons or The Evil Dead.
Rating: 7/10
Molly Celaschi
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