I have been reviewing a lot of new releases lately, films like The Maze Runner and Interstellar and Big Hero 6, and other films that moviegoers actually watch. I have a lot of reasons for that. I want to appeal to the mainstream public while The Film Site (dot) NET starts up but also because I have been watching them in theaters anyway, so why not? A lot of my time is dedicated to low-budget and independent films. I love Full Moon Features, and if a film seems interesting, I’ll watch it. I haven’t been doing that lately though, and so this film was a return to form to me. A terrible, terrible return to form. But an interesting one.
Nurse 3D is a 2013 3D horror film that was directed by Doug Aarniokoski and written by David Loughery. The film stars Paz de la Huerta, Katrina Bowden, and Corbin Bleu. The film received mixed reviews from critics and moviegoers, but was a modest success at the box-office. The film follows a woman named Abby that kills the ‘cheaters’ of the world in an effort to clean the streets from the scum that infest it. Once she seduces them, Abby takes violent methods to bring them to justice. She also happens to be a nurse. Later in the film, she meets a character named Danni Rodgers that she takes an admitted interest in. Abby befriends her with behaviors that come across as friendly and innocent in the beginning but almost immediately take a turn in a different direction. A turn that involves drugging, murder, and a mess of bizarre and strange scenes.
I’ll start off by saying that Nurse 3D brings a campy, B-movie vibe that definitely needs the right audience for it to be truly appreciated. But that doesn’t mean it will be appreciated. The film’s premise might seem enticing to various viewers but the reality of it leaves a lot to be desired. Abby’s character never has much in the way of direction at all whatsoever. A vigilant fighting against something that’s morally unethical with something that is morally deplorable. The character doesn’t have a lot of flushing out though and it seems inconsistent. Like the film doesn’t really know what it is trying to say but it borrows a mess of character elements that don’t add up to anything coherent. Her character doesn’t have anything deep or intellectual about her, but instead, Nurse Abby is just a trash-heap of a character that kills cheaters while also obsessing about some of them.
The lead actress is questionable as well in the role, her acting doesn’t ever really click, in-fact, it actually represents a lot of what I was saying about the film lacking much of an identity. Her moments of dialogue are done with a certain mediocrity that makes it feel like she’s reading word for word from a script. Which she is, more than likely, but it’s not supposed to feel like that. Her delivery fails at offering what the character needs to be in-order to escalate the film. That, and the writing itself doesn’t bring enough humor to keep it together. A lot have compared the film to a certain grindhouse feeling, but I don’t see that. The film takes itself serious and is over-the-top silly, but it does it with such conventional horror elements and characteristics that I can’t approach it with a ‘so good it’s bad’ feeling, but can only see it for what it is.
If nudity is something that you enjoy in films, I would first introduce you to the wonderful world of the internet and then admit that this film is likely up your alley. At the same time though, the whole thing has the tendency to wreak of desperation, and it has me thinking of something more trashy than anything else. While the lead actress is deplorable, none of the other actors really leave much of an impression on me. Neither good nor bad, they all seem fine with neither expelling my expectations of mediocrity or doing anything else besides heading through the motions.
In all honesty though, the issues that Nurse 3D most often offers aren’t a matter of what it is doing wrong, but a matter of what it fails to succeed in. That is, for everything that is despicable or lacking in the film, there could’ve been and should’ve been something else to make up for it. That’s what such a lowbrow and indecisive subject matter usually entails, but this film fails at offering much of anything at all that might warrant a recommendation from me.
Nurse 3D isn’t the type of horrible that is worth recognition, a certain Ed Wood quality that has to be seen to be believed. The film fails, but doesn’t fail completely. Nurse is a run-of-the-mill horrible that just isn’t worth anyone’s time or money.
Can’t wait for the sequel.