How Do You Fuck That Up? - The Convent

"How Do You Fuck That Up?" is a soon to be recurring exploration of b-movies that, based on their covers and/or descriptions, should be too awesome to fail, but somehow manage to anyway.


The first film to get this dubious honor is 2000's The Convent, though I'm sure there are many out there who will vehemently beg to differ.

The official synopsis focuses on the first few minutes of the film, in which a young woman walks into a church with a gas can and a shotgun and proceeds to unload on the present clergy. Decades later, a pack of irritating, collegiate red-shirts break into the decaying chapel and (naturally) unleash demonic forces.

I would charitably describe the movie as Adrienne Barbeau vs. Glow-in-the-Dark Demon Nuns. Sounds awesome, no? The D-cups of justice herself playing a thinly veiled she-Ash with a motorcycle and a bone to pick with possessed corpses that glow under black-lights and dress like Catholic clergyfolk.

So tell me, The Convent, with all you have going for yourself....

How do you fuck that up?

Start with even more annoying than usual victims, sprinkle unfunny comic relief throughout (including that one guy with those YouTube videos), add a pinch of pointless cameos from Bill Moseley and Coolio (who I guess was... available), make sure your "final girl" is completely affectless, don't give Barbeau anything cool or interesting to do, and finally, just be generally incompetent in your writing/directing/editing/gore effects.

The whole mess reminds me of a pre-Mysterious Skin Gregg Araki flick, and I absolutely can't stand his early, campy work.

Seriously, movie, we coulda been pals.