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The Convent
[Blu-ray 4K]
Blu-ray ALL - America - Synapse Films Review written by and copyright: Eric Cotenas (7th December 2024). |
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The Film
 Audience Award: Mike Mendez (winner) - Fantafestival, 2000 International Fantasy Film Award (Best Film): Mike Mendez (nominee) - Fantasporto, 2000 Narcisse Award (Best Feature Film): Mike Mendez () - Neuchâtel International Fantastic Film Festival, 2000 Chainsaw Award (Best Limited-Release/Direct-to-Video Film): The Convent (nominee), Best Supporting Actress: Adrienne Barbeau (winner), and Best Screenplay: Chaton Anderson (nominee) - Fangoria Chainsaw Awards, 2000 The St. Francis Boarding School for girls has been an attractive nuisance for forty years since sixteen-year-old Christine (The Dead Hate the Living!'s Oakley Stevenson) gunned down the priest and nuns and set the chapel ablaze after they supposedly forcibly aborted her child rumored to have been fathered by the priest. While the exterior of the old mission building and its classrooms have been vandalized, every few years during homecoming, students from the local college attempt the challenge of getting up to the bell tower to paint their team name. This year, the group consists of quarterback Chad (Blood Surf's Dax Miller) and his "final girl" girlfriend Clorissa (Empire Records' Joanna Canton), starter Biff (Jim Golden) and his cheerleader girlfriend Kaitlin (Shriek if You Know What I Did Last Friday the 13th's Renée Graham), surprisingly buff pothead Frijole (Cradle 2 the Grave's Richard Trapp), Clorissa's much-abused fraternity pledge brother Brant (Liam Kyle Sullivan), and frathouse bulldog Boozer. The group gets a fifth wheel in Clorissa's Goth classmate Mo (The Perfect Host's Megahn Perry) who threatens to expose Clorissa's own past as a weirdo loser to her conformist friends if she does not get a ride to the convent where she hopes to capture some evidence of the paranormal. Fortunately, Mo is not a hard sell since the rest of the group thinks she is a "dyke" and Frijole thinks he can go where no man has gone before (she's actually saving herself for Marilyn Manson in a joke that did not age well at all). Their exploration of the ruins and splitting off for some action is thwarted when patrol officers Starkey (rapper Coolio) and Ray (House of 1000 Corpses' Bill Moseley) show up and chase them off – but not before confiscating Frijole's joints – leaving Mo behind to get grabbed by "The 13th Coven" consisting of dark prince and Dairy Cream cashier Saul (Vampire Journals' David Gunn), Goth club tweaker Dickie Boy (drag queen Kelly Mantle), and busty bimbos Sapphira (Skateland's Chaton Anderson who also scripted) and Davina (Body Shots' Allison Dunbar). Although their sub-Anton LaVey Black Mass theatrics are laughable even to their imminent virginal sacrifice Mo, they prove successful, with the damned spirits of the priest and nuns looking for bodies to inhabit and finding them when Clorissa, Chad, Biff, Kaitlin, Frijole, and Brant (and don't forget Boozer) return ostensibly to rescue Mo but also to retrieve Frijole's ditched stash. As more of the kids are taken over by demons bent on finding a vessel for the Antichrist, Clorissa's only hope (and that of the world) may be recluse Christine (The Fog's Adrienne Barbeau) just ten years out of the nuthouse and known to shoot first and ask questions later. A relative step up into the mainstream for director Mike Mendez after his ultra low-budget debut Killers which used the Menendez killings as a springboard, The Convent starts out well-enough with a massacre of a priest and nuns to Lesley Gore's "You Don't Own Me" and a typical setup of young people trespassing in a property of the damned; however, once the supernatural rears its head, the film feels more in the vein of the Night of the Demons remake than the superior original with frenetic camerawork, undercranked possession scenes, and demons wearing UV-reactive make-up. At this point the film gives up any pretense of being a serious horror film and goes completely wacky with bombastic techno accompaniment. Somehow the more overt comedy and the demon stalk and kill antics are far less entertaining than the flashbacks to young Christine's experiences in the convent where Barbeau's deadpan narration is far more effective as counterpoint. The Coolio scenes were entertaining at the time but Moseley is overshadowed in what appears to have been intended as a guest appearance. While the film played well to 2000s-era hip horror audiences and has some nostalgic value in the intervening years of J-horror, torture porn, found footage, and "elevated horror," The Covent is ultimately dumb fun at most. Since The Convent, Mendez has worked mainly in the genre by way of festival-friendly works with films like The Gravedancers – part of LionsGate's once-annual "8 Films to Die For" line – Big Ass Spider!, and Don't Kill It as well as segments of the portmanteau films Tales of Halloween and Satanic Hispanics. 
Video
Given scant theatrical play, The Convent found most of its audience stateside via pre-LionsGate Lion's Gate's 2001 DVD which was stacked with extras but slightly trimmed for an R-rating while the full cut was available overseas. Synapse Films released a 4,000 copy website-exclusive limited edition 4K UltraHD/Blu-ray combo edition with slipcover earlier this year followed by this standard combo edition and a single-disc Blu-ray standard edition. The 2160p24 HEVC 1.78:1 widescreen Dolby Vision/HDR10-compatible 4K UltraHD disc and the 1080p24 MPEG-4 AVC 1.78:1 widescreen Blu-ray come from a new 4K master approved by the director. Since the film comes from that late nineties/early 2000s era, colors are richly saturated rather than the trendy bleach bypass/digital desaturation to come; as such, the 4K disc is of course more successful at delineating the saturation and light levels across the image while the Blu-ray itself is an improvement over the DVD master in which the primaries were noisy and sometimes diluted the shadows as well as the skin tones of the non-possessed actors. The remaster also allows an easier assessment of some of the prosthetics under the UV make-up at best while effects like a baseball bat blow that knocks a skull out of its skin were not particularly convincing in SD and less so here (one does wonder in this new transfer if the shots of neon pink blood spurting out of severed demon neck stumps is a homage to the C.H.U.D. sword decapitation since they make repeated use of it each time a nun loses their head). The film's rough edges show in the noisy shadows and the flatness of the film's early digital effects including a matte painting that suggests that the convent is significantly larger and more Gothic than its Alamo-style location exterior is no more convincing here than it was on DVD. 
Audio
The sole audio option is a DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 track mixed "from the original 16-track audio masters." We do not know if this is the same mix as the DVD or if any theatrical screenings were Dolby Digital or matrixed stereo but dialogue is always intelligible and foley work is wonderfully directional from the opening flames and gunshots to atmospherics but the score really does much of the work – which probably made it easier than coming up with shuffling sounds for the demon nuns pursuing their victims – and has a strong presence from the low ends to the high. Optional English SDH subtitles are included. 
Extras
Most of the extras are ported from the earlier DVD starting with an audio commentary by director Mike Mendez, composer Joseph Bishara, and cast members Megahn Perry and Liam Kyle Sullivan in which Mendez hints early on at production issues by noting that the opening sequence – which he shot piecemeal over the entirety of the schedule – was the only sequence that truly satisfied him (while also dissatisfying his Catholic parents). Perry reveals that she and Canton were from the same town and hated each other as teenagers because they had the same boyfriend while Sullivan recalls the scenes where he had to pretend that Boozer the dog was just ouf of frame (apparently the dog was the busiest actor as part of the Planter's Peanut commercial campaign). Both recall the day that Coolio was on the set while Mendez reveals that Dunbar was always doubled by someone else under the demon make-up and that all of the crew members at one time or another doubled as demons. Perry also points out a continuity error in which Canton throws a fry across the table at the diner and Trapp is hit with a pickle in the reverse angle. They also recall shooting at the Lacey Production Center that not only played host to Leprechaun 5: In da Hood and that The Convent shot on the same sets, but also that the concurrent shoots – including some pornographic productions – actually had to alternate takes so as not to ruin each others' production audio. Also ported over is the audio commentary by the “Lords of Hell”, a jokey track featuring Mantle and Gunn in character. Your mileage may vary on this one.  New to the release is a video tour (14:33) by Mendez of locations from both Killers and The Convent starting with his childhood home for the former film along with the producer's home used for the main setting. Discussion of the latter film includes the convent exterior which is now a beer garden, the Lacy Production Center – the rear exterior of which was used for the ruined version of the convent – and the sorority house location which is a "B-movie staple" featured in films like Evil Toons. The vintage making of (8:33) features behind the scenes video and interview clips with Mendez, Perry, and Sullivan as well as the rest of the cast including Anderson discussing the inspiration from her own childhood of a derelict convent building in her neighborhood, and Mendez mentioning that the film was greenlit based on the concept before they started writing the script. The electronic press kit (11:33) is a series of "interview bytes" with Mendez (featuring an appearance by Coolio), Chaton, and producer Ryan Carroll (Witchtrap). The deleted scene (0:30) is an extension of the diner sequence featuring a "retarded" character played by an actor who later became actress Perry's boyfriend while the gore outtakes (5:54) is a time-coded montage of effects shots including flaming nuns and more blood-spurting neck stumps. The disc also includes a still gallery (6:26) and a pair of promotional trailers (1:44 and 1:45). 
Packaging
The disc comes with a reversible cover and a booklet featuring the essay "It’s Always Something with a Virgin" by Corey Danna.
Overall
While The Convent seemed clever and edgy in 2000, in retrospect it is just more like dumb fun.
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