The Transgressor

Directed by Norifumi Suzuki, this 1974 Japanese film, originally titled Seiju Gakuen, belongs to the nun themed branch of the pinky violence wave that Toei was releasing at a rate of nearly one film a month in the early seventies. Maya takes religious vows to find out what happened to her mother at the Sacred Heart Convent eighteen years earlier, and the moment the doors close behind her she finds herself among flagellation rituals, a predatory mother superior and lecherous clergy. Toei had actually asked Suzuki for another delinquent schoolgirl picture, but he drew on the Western nunsploitation tradition instead, and this film largely set the template for the Japanese version of the subgenre. Strict Japanese censorship laws of the era pushed Suzuki toward visual strategies that imply extreme content rather than showing it outright. Allmovie critic Donald Guarisco wrote that the film manages to be shocking and artistically stunning at once, and it is remembered for the tension between its dreamlike compositions and its exploitation content. Who it's for: Genre historians curious about the films that set the template for 1970s Japanese exploitation cinema. Who it's not for: Absolutely not for anyone who can't stomach torture, sexual violence and religious abuse, since the film is explicit about all three.