SACRED FLESH

Sister Elizabeth, the mother superior of a medieval convent, has visions of Mary Magdalene and a skeletal dead nun. Father Henry, the abbot, and his servant Richard are summoned by the convent's abbess to help with the hysteria spreading among the order.

Elizabeth recounts the confessions and fantasies of the nuns, flagellating herself and becoming excited as she does so: Sister Sarah masturbates; Sisters Mary and Helena flagellate one another and then have sex. Sister Catherine is violated by Fathers James and Peter. Finally, Sisters Jane, Teresa and Helen engage in three-way sex and violate Sister Ann after tying her to a cross. Elizabeth writhes violently in her cell and, as she dies, is tormented by visions of a crucified woman and Christ's beating Sacred Heart.

Mother Elizabeth and an (imagined) demonic Mary Magdalene (who has relapsed from sainthood, back into the sex worker the church once claimed she was) debate desire and chastity within what seems to be a heavenly antechamber. Mary remarks to Elizabeth that, as her convent is full of repressed female desire, the Mother Superior too is enveloped within this voluptuous fold. Elizabeth details four fantasy vignettes. These are interspersed with conversations between the convent's former abbess, a priest, Abbess Elizabeth, an odd dead zombie nun and an actress Eileen Daly playing the spirit of Catechism.

The sex scenes conform to standard pornographic sequencing. They each start simply and culminate in erotic release at the end. There are scenes of the full lesbian sexual gamut, which extends from episodes of individual nuns' self-stimulation to non-monogamous lesbian sex to a final nun-centered crucifix-bondage scene, with copious use of the whip and the rope.

Sister Elizabeth dies in her cell, tormented by religious visions, and debates desire and chastity with a demonic Mary Magdalene in a heavenly antechamber.

The ending confronts the dual forces of religious repression and erotic desire, with Elizabeth’s death marking the collapse of her struggle between spiritual duty and sensual temptation. The posthumous debate with Mary Magdalene underscores the film’s theme: that repression only serves to entangle both the individual and the wider community in cycles of guilt, ecstasy, and self-destruction. The convent’s hysteria is revealed as both a symptom and a legacy of the mother superior’s own inner conflict.