Nurse Sherri (1978)

Very very predictable, including the post credit scene !!!

Must See Movie...

if their story seems completely bonkers, almost like a feverish work of fiction, you ain't heard nothing yet.

While it doesn't offer any answers, it both thrills and makes you think.

In 1978 the drive-ins were still the best place to find horror films. Always treated like the red headed step child they were the bread and butter for those passion pits across the country. The movies that played there ranged from mainstream films to low budget flicks but the low budget horror film seemed to fill those outdoor screens on a regular basis. With the success of THE EXORCIST and CARRIE it wasn't long before bits and pieces of both were used in some of these films. NURSE SHERRI used plot points from the first and ad images from the second. The end result is a movie that isn't all that great and doesn't quite make the "so bad it's good" ranks. But it does come close and is a part of drive-in history so I was glad to see it given this new treatment by Vinegar Syndrome.The story involves a cult leader named Reanhauer (Bill Roy) whose small group listens to him as he tells them one of their number recently deceased will be raised from the dead if they only have faith. While the tone here seems to draw connections to the occult it's never quite stated for sure that this is a devil worshipping cult or not. Needless to say the leader's promises of rising the now rotting corpse fall through and during a last ditch effort to pull it off he has a heart attack and is rushed to the hospital.He dies on the operating table but not before he has the chance to pass his soul off onto Nurse Sherri (Jill Jacobson). Lying in bed we watch as a green glowing blob makes its way beneath her door and wraps around her, transferring his soul. The effects are cheap but work, at least for this low budget flick.Angry that the doctors performed the operation without his permission Reanhauer now Sherri decides to have his vengeance on the surgical team. Killing them off is the intent and that doesn't matter who it involves, including Sherri's boyfriend and head surgeon Dr. Desmond (Geoffrey Land). The killings are fairly tame for movies of the time let alone by today's standards with little visuals but plenty of blood. With such a small amount of story to work with the film is padded with so much extra it almost feels like it was made up of various films tossed together. The whole sequence with the cult in the beginning seems to take forever. A side story involving a pro-football player who's been in an accident that caused him to lose his sight is tossed in as well as the adoring fan and fellow nurse who is attracted to him. Don't be fooled, this movie is definitely one of those ultra-low budget films that were there to sell popcorn and to offer something on the screen that horny teens could care less about while at the drive-in. That being said there is a certain amount of charm to the movie. It might not be something to watch on a regular basis but a night of bad drive-in flicks would be complete if this were in the line-up. There is another group who will demand that this film be added to their collection and that's fans of director Al Adamson. Adamson is well known for his low budget films and as co-founder of Independent-International Pictures he had plenty of chances to make movies that filled those outdoor screens for years. Perhaps his best known films were SATAN'S SADIST, a biker flick, DRACULA VS FRANKENSTEIN and THE NAUGHTY STEWARDESSES. His films have been rediscovered in recent years and this one is certain to be a must have.I'd seen this film years ago on DVD but forget who released it at that time. Needless to say the quality offered for the film was severely lacking. Vinegar Syndrome treats the film as if it was a rare gem to be polished and presented in the best possible way releasing it for the first time on blu-ray. The film was restored using the best prints available using the 35mm original negative. Not only that there are more extras included here than can be found on some major motion picture releases. These include a commentary track with producer Sam Sherman, NURSES CONFESSIONS a featurette with co-stars Jill Jacobson and Marilyn Joi, THEN AND NOW a locations featurette, a promotional still gallery, the original trailers and reversible cover artwork. The disc also includes an alternate feature length "exploitation" version of the film called KILLER'S CURSE. Several companies have made it their goal to resurrect lost treasures like this one and Vinegar Syndrome continues to do a bang up job of it. If you've seen this film before the odds are you haven't seen it in as clean a version as presented here. Adamson fans should grab a copy immediately. Horror fans should consider picking up a copy as well. And lovers of drive-in flicks will find this one worth buying too.

This is a hard film to rate. While it truly deserves its 3 (or perhaps even a two), for an Al Adamson film, it's exceptional--and practically Adamson's very best. That's because unlike many Adamson films, there are times when NURSE SHERRI almost looks competent. But, being an Adamson film, you know that sooner or later that crappiness MUST rear its ugly head! The film begins with some bizarre cult leader of a huge congregation (six) trying to resurrect a dead guy who looks like he's made of blue cheese. However, in the process, the cult dude has a heart attack and it taken to the hospital. He apparently dies, but it also seems like many of these hospital scenes are missing and a few of them appear much later in the film. In other words, when you see the film, he appears to have possibly recovered--only to hear later that he'd died. Because the guy is the b.f.f. of Satan, however, his evil soul can't die and he comes back to both haunt one of his henchmen and to possess Nurse Sherri.Now, Sherri is obviously a very disturbed lady--demonic possession or not. At times she acts like a zombie and at others she's violently homicidal. So I ask..."why didn't her boyfriend (a doctor) think this was, perhaps, problematic?!". In other words, after trying to kill a patient, he neither gets an exorcist nor commits her to the booby hatch!!! Oh, and speaking of boobies...this movie is NOT the breast-filled sex romp its title and posters would indicate. While there are a few bare breasts here and there, they are irrelevant to the plot and only seen very briefly (1/2 second or so) in all but one scene. So, if you are a perv, this movie is not for you--though a few places in the film (such as the nurse undressing for a patient) make it look like the film MIGHT have, at one time, been designed as a porn flick.If you are a bad movie fan, however, there is enough to whet your appetite. Some examples of incompetence are the inability of many of the actors to deliver lines that aren't zombie-like--and I am not even talking about Sherri. Especially noticeable is one of the very final scenes--I have never seen and heard some stilted acting and dialog in my life--and this includes Ed Wood's films! There are also a few more cheap touches, such as the bad animation of the "green stuff", the doctor finding a murdered nurse yet continuing to investigate in a house where walls are covered in blood (I'd get a cop...better yet, an army of cops).So despite these problems, why do I think it's good for an Adamson film? Well, the story isn't all bad and he was able to build tension very well. Many false alarms early on made my heart race a bit. Also, the car crash, while irrelevant, came off pretty well and was practically big-budget for Adamson.Overall, not a good film and one most people would be bored watching. However, fans of Adamson or inept films will like it--it does deliver some entertainment in a cheesy manner that will provide a few laughs.

I only came here to check Terror Hospital for an alternate title so I'd know what not to pick up. Not only do I get the original title, but I come to find Terror Hospital is one of seven more aliases.This one is a real clunker. Movies like this can usually be forgiven for any number of reasons, mostly unintended consequences of the feature on every level of production that result in at least a mild form of entertainment, mostly amusement. This has none of that. Instead, the viewer is witness to redundantly unnecessary and way-too-convenient-for-the-situation exposition and drawn out scenes of characters warily moving from room to room, and all this is half of the film. Forget trying to figure out where anybody is (or who they are) during darkened or nighttime scenes, too; you probably won't care, anyway. There is also a random car chase sequence that seems quite dull when compared to some of the old driver's ed movies I slep... er, I mean sat through and watched way back in high school. Really, we're talking about mysticism, possession, and a killer on the loose here - not a bad recipe for trash cinema. Unfortunately, there's nothing here to make it even "good" trash; when joined to the aforementioned, the bad acting and not-so-special effects are just that - bad acting and not-so-special effects. This one's just trash, pure and simple. Leave it on the rack at the pawn shop or in that box at the yard sale. There's a reason its there...

The first 20 minutes were a little fun because I don't think I've seen a film this bad before {acting, script, effects (!), etc....} The rest of the running time seemed to drag forever with every cliche in dialog used to no effect. These people seemed to not really like horror movies or how to make them or any other movie. There's no adult language, a bit of brief nudity, and no gore except fake blood smeared over no open wounds, etc.. It would have been rated PG in the early eighties and PG-13 nowadays. I'm not sure how it got an R rating or if it really did. I saw the American International release titled Hospital Of Terror. I've seen 100 horror films in the past 12 months and this is probably the worst film I've ever seen. Here's an example of how bad it is: There's one scene where something green comes through the door. I'm not sure what it's supposed to be but what it is on screen is some kid's green crayon scribblings {I'm not exaggerating} super-imposed over the film, semi-moving inside the door, then its supposed to do something to Nurse Sherri to possess her I suppose. I could not believe they had the lack of pride to show this embarrassment.