Set within the cloistered confines of a convent, the film explores themes of forbidden desire, sin, and the supernatural. The nuns, portrayed by an ensemble cast, find themselves entangled in a web of lust and eerie occurrences that challenge their faith and morality. D'Amato's direction creates an atmosphere thick with tension and sensuality, making the convent setting both a place of repression and hidden passions.

The cinematography is one of the film's stronger points. The use of lighting and shadow plays a crucial role in establishing the mood, with candlelit scenes and dark corridors enhancing the sense of mystery and intrigue. The soundtrack, a mix of haunting melodies and period-appropriate music, further immerses the audience in the film's unique atmosphere.

However, Immagini di un convento is not without its shortcomings. The plot often feels secondary to the film's erotic elements, resulting in a narrative that lacks depth and coherence. The characters, while intriguing in their initial setup, are not fully developed, leaving their motivations and transformations somewhat superficial. The balance between the thriller and erotic aspects is uneven, with the latter sometimes overshadowing the former to the detriment of the story.

The performances are a mixed bag as well. Some actors deliver compelling portrayals that draw the viewer in, while others appear wooden and detached, detracting from the overall impact of the film. Additionally, certain scenes intended to shock or titillate may come across as gratuitous or exploitative, which could alienate some viewers.

In conclusion, Immagini di un convento is an atmospheric and visually striking film that struggles to maintain a consistent and engaging narrative. Its blend of eroticism and thriller elements offers moments of intrigue and intensity but ultimately fails to coalesce into a satisfying whole. Fans of Joe D'Amato's work and those interested in 1970s erotic cinema may find it worth a watch, but it may not appeal to a broader audience seeking a more balanced and coherent thriller.

Originally called La casa del dio sconosciuto (House of the Unknown God), this movie starts by informing you that it was very loosely inspired by Prosper Mérimée's La Vénus d'Ille before quoting Blaise Pascal: "The last function of reason is to recognize that there are an infinity of things which surpass it."

Then a whole bunch of nuns get possessed and get it on.

I mean, you can lock up gorgeous nuns but in the Mondo D'Amato they are going to spend most of the movie flipping out, touching one another and rehabilitating a wounded man by repeatedly hiding the bishop. Yet that young man has brought the devil with him!

Paola Senatore stars as Isabella, the duchess who has been left in this convent for her own protection and that doesn't go so well. Marina Hedman is Sister Marta and you may remember her from Play Motel, a movie that rivals this one for sheer prurience. Aïché Nana plays the Mother Superior, which is probably an inside joke, as she's most famous for dancing an infamous striptease during a private party at the Rugantino restaurant and nightclub on the Viale di Trastevere in Rome that got so much attention, it caused a national scandal and inspired the orgy scene in Fellini's film La Dolce Vita. Sister Veronica is Giovanna Mainardi, one of the female guards of SS Experiment Love Camp. Sister Giulia is Maria Rosaria Riuzzi from Emanuelle and Francoise and Salon Kitty. Finally, the exorcist who tries to fix it all is Donald O'Brien, whose Italian film credentials are beyond reproach: Dr. Butcher, M. D.; Keoma; Emanuelle and the Last Cannibals; Yeti Giant of the 20th Century; The Sect; Ghosthouse and about fifty more.

This movie - moved along by the Nico Fidenco soundtrack - feels like a nightmare and then a dream and then another nightmare and then a priest leads the nuns through the convent trying to get Satan out of their midst while a murder happens and every nun unleashes their full wanton carnal needs as they struggle to the altar. Sure, it's exploitation, but in the hands of D'Amato, it approaches scumbag art.

D'Amato's stab at Nunsploitation feels like one of his lesser works, and in its own sub-genre it doesn't have the impact of Russell's The Devils, The Borowczyk's Behind Convent Walls or Franco's Love Letters of a Portuguese Nun. Like Franco's film, D'Amato's is based on a literary classic, in this case Diderot's La Religieuse. It follows Diderot's theme of a woman who refuses to accept her cloistering as a positive good, and D'Amato like Diderot appears to believe "the cloistered life (…) both unreasonable and unnatural" and that "the cloister and the insane asylum were strikingly similar".

As befits its title, D'Amato's film is mostly concerned to track down the linkages of the nun's behaviour to the images which surround them at the convent – the effigies of Christ and the Cross but also a statue of an "unknown god" which stands in the grounds, who is a dead-ringer for the devil. The Christ images spur the Nuns on in their devotions but when things slip to rather more fleshy concerns, the statue takes precedence. The unanswered question of the film is whether the Nun's various behaviour is driven from within, their own desires and drives towards sanctimony or sensuousness, or whether they are merely the pawns moved in a power play between inanimate images. The majority shots suggest a degree of motivation on the part of the sisters, as we stay close to their faces and see them reacting to events and phenomena from a subjective compulsion (as when one sister catches another sinning, whips her, sees the welts and then kisses the welts – she is clearly being driven by her own conflicting inner desires to these acts). Yet on a few occasions (privileged by their striking difference in an otherwise visually conservative film), involving both Christ and Devil figures, we get a bird's eye shot of characters performing their religious or saucy antics, and therefore the suggestion remains that the images are the governing principles at work.

After over an hour of various solo, lesbian and heterosexual softcore frolics (as usual in Nunsploitation, a virile man is sequestered in the convent) – all of which is slickly and dreamily shot but somewhat lacking in dramatic impact, we get a final act which goes rather barmy. The devil statue has been appearing where it shouldn't, over the altar and in the corridors, and so a nun is sent out of the convent for an exorcist. In a wood, she is attacked and raped by two rogues, a sequence which shocks by its sudden excursion into hardcore territory. It is as if the images we have seen in the convent, of the nuns, their devotions and their frolics, are being challenged by a sudden injection of horrid and grimy realism – D'Amato emphasising that the cloistered life is cut off from the real world (which the Mother Superior says is the case in her first speech in the film). This suggests an antagonism between the arty, soft-core demands of the genre and D'Amato's penchant for moments of graphic violence and sexual congress.

There follows a long exorcism sequence, in which the rather authoritarian priest wanders the cloister casting out the devil, a glazed look of determination on his face, as the writhing, sexualised nuns group around him. In the midst of this, the rebel nun and the sequestered man are coupling, a sexual act which culminated in her totally non-rationally motivated stabbing of him. It is as if the exorcism re-established the rule of the Christ effigy above and beyond the individual motivations of the Nun, and so she had to destroy the man who had previously been identified at times with the devil statue. This ending is the film's ultimate challenge to subjectivity – we can search in vain for some rationale as to why she stabs him but the film seems to be suggestion that she has been indeed a player in a contest between two sets of imagery, one Christian and the other Satanic. Whether D'Amato means to suggest a supernatural battle or merely a battle of images which people have themselves created isn't clear, although the film's title would suggest the latter. In which case, the film is an exposure of the sheer madness that is idolatry.