Dark Habits (1983)

Ignore the mediocre reviews. Dark Habits is delightful, no less so than Almodóvar's later, more popular movies. This is not in any way interesting only because it shows how much better he got later. That's absurd.

This movie is great fun, deadpan, outrageously irreverent but never mean-spirited, affectionate, hilarious but in a subtly low-key way, wildly imaginative and yet gentle and sweet. I loved it. Julieta Serrano as the Mother Superior and Chus Lampreave (who has a larger role than in his later movies) as Sister Alley Rat are especially delightful.

Fmovies: Unfortunately it has been taking a wrong interpretation in the comments in this site. It's like "Via Lactea" from the top director Bunuel. The surrealistc way that Almodovar treats the nuns is like a "tapa na cara" of the catholic church... It's a film about trust, about perseverance. Like somebody saying: "You don't have to be afraid, nobody have the power to judge you, the intolerance is the home of the unfortune". The drugs trip of Marisa Paredes trip is similar Peter Fonda's trip in the Roger Corman's "The Trip"(1972 ?). Carmen Maura and her Tiger are lovely (I love that bongo!!!) "Dark Habits" (Maus Habitos, here in Brasil) is a very very good film.Oh, I was forgetting Chus Lampreave doing the erotic writer (like Marisa Paredes in "Flower of My Secret"), I think she is just GREAT !!!! ENJOY IT !!! DON'T BE AFRAID !!! (Excuses for my mistakes .... and if someone want to discuss, write me a e-mail)

Maybe you have to speak Spanish to understand the lines of this crazy nuns. Almodovar's fans will love this movie, it's very Almodovar. the end is kind of strange but like someone said "is more important the trip than to get there". The nuns of Dark Habits use drugs, write lurid pulp novels, design high-fashion habits, and keep a tiger in their courtyard. Yolanda (Cristina Sanchez Pascual) gets caught up in the head nun's scheme to regain the patronage of a wealthy noblewoman,the end is kind of strange but like someone said "ïs more important the trip than to get there".it offers its own charms and comic delights I give a 7 out of 10 but I really enjoy it.

Dark Habits fmovies. Maybe the one line summary is wrong, that's the problem with Pedro Almodovar's flick, you don't know what its supposed to be: ironic, satire, parody, black comedy or a serious drama. It's got a lounge singer hiding out in a convent (remember this is a 1983 movie, made way before Sister Act) after her lover ODs. The nuns are former losers, street trash, etc. who are given punishable names like Sister Rat-in-the-Sewer or Sister-Damned and their Mother Superior shoots up heroin. Are they making fun of Catholics or what? Nevertheless, this is a bit funny, while being a little boring. Recommended to the Almodovar/Spanish/foreign fans who shouldn't expect this one to be better than his usual films.

What else do you need to know? Honestly, this isn't Almodovar's best work. In fact, it's pretty sloppy story-wise. But I enjoyed the heck out of it. Cristina Sanchez Pascual plays a heroin-addicted singer who hides out in a convent after her boyfriend overdoses. The nuns there are, shall we say, a little quirky in that they are mostly on drugs (heroin, cocaine, acid - but not pot; at one point a nun says "you know I don't do soft drugs"). Also, one's a lesbian and another writes lurid romance novels and together they have raised a pet tiger. They all have names like Sister Snake and Sister Rat, because the humiliation is sacred. There's really no compelling reason the nuns are on drugs. It's just kind of a shocking, humorous detail. I think Bunuel would have loved it, though the film itself isn't particularly blasphemous. It doesn't view the nuns or Catholicism cynically. It just exists in its own, weird Almodovar universe. The plot is not very strong, so the whole thing just kind of fizzles, but it's entertaining. Carmen Maura plays one of the nuns, but she's not an extremely important character. On the Region 1 DVD, though, she graces the cover.

"Entre tinieblas": "In the Dark" maybe "Wondering about", "Somebody that has lost his/her way" would be the closest translation to the Spanish title.

"Dark Habits" is so parochial, so banal, that changes completely the message of this movie.

I just saw it today, out of nostalgia, since I own a copy, but very seldom I see a movie more than once.

Throughout the years I've seen this one three times! Every time it excels the last view. It isn't the best Almodovar. At the time he didn't have the money (and therefore the incredible terseness of his more recent filmography) nor the experience to make a work of art of every single frame, as he has accustomed us during the last several years. But this films grabs you from the very beginning with such guts that it's impossible to point out its formula.

It's simply magic.

Cristina Sánchez Pascual is not Greta Garbo, but again, like the movie itself, she has "something" in her personality that mesmerizes you whenever she's on the screen.

The way Chus Lampreave ("Sor Rata de Callejón" or "Sister Rat of the Back Alley") delivers her lines is comparable to the way Carol Channing or Eartha Kitt used to delivered theirs: Sheer pleasure to the ears and the brain.

I don't know how it could sound to somebody that needs to read the translation, but for a Spanish speaking person this woman is unique. She could read the telephone book and make it irresistibly funny.

The character of the Marquess (Mary Carrillo) is Almodovar 100%, when she comments to the Abbess Julia: "I'm a cosmetician", "¿Really?", "Of course, see my face?" and she shows an incredibly clownish face that only an inebriated cosmetician would have done.

And the Bolero that Lucho Gatica sings --"Encadenados" "Chained Together"-- is simply so gorgeous that one could melt on the spot out of utter delight, I swear. (I have to find it on "You Tube"!!).

This movie doesn't deserve 8 points, I simply gave it 8 points in my vote because of its masterly ways to grab one's imagination with not too many resources. I adore this movie. It's imperfect, the photography is not very good, the acting leaves a lot to be desired, the sets are in general quite poor..., the script...MMM-mmm, but the movie is sublime!!