The Convent

The Convent is a 2000 horror film directed by Mike Mendez, starring the horror veteran Adrienne Barbeau. It is about a group of college students who go into an abandoned convent, only to discover that it is inhabited by demons intent on possessing them. It was premiered in January 2000 at the Sundance Film Festival. Due to the original distributor closing, the film was not released on home video until December 2002. Plot A young Christine breaks into a convent and systematically kills every nun she comes across before setting fire to the place and leaving. The convent becomes an abandoned building and, years later, is a popular place for college students to break in and vandalize, as it is reported to be haunted. It is particularly popular for sororities and fraternities to break in and try to spray-paint their letters on the bell tower, which is where Clorissa is going that very night with her friends. She is joined by her old goth friend Mo, her nerdy brother Brant, ex-fraternity brother Frijole, the cheerleader Kaitlin and her dog, and fraternity brothers Chad and Biff. At the convent, Biff and Frijole immediately start bullying Brant under the pretense that it is just routine hazing that all must go through in order to join the fraternity. This irritates Clorissa, who unsuccessfully tries to convince Brant that he should blow them off. Once inside, the group begins to explore the convent but are stopped by the arrival of two police officers that force them to leave and take a cannabis joint that one of them had been holding. Scared to lose her scholarship if she is caught by the police, Mo decides to stay and hide in the convent, having persuaded Frijole to cover for her by promising him they would have sex. The group then goes to a diner, where Frijole tells the group that they must go back for Mo as well as a large stash of pot that he left in the convent. Back in the convent, Mo has been grabbed by a group of Satanists who are intent on sacrificing her as part of a ritual to give its leader Saul power and summon Satan to earth. As Mo listens to the group talk to one another, she realizes that while they are all ridiculously gothic pretentious and have no idea what they are doing, they are serious about killing her. She tries to talk them out of it but is ultimately unsuccessful.