I'm sure you all know how it is. There's a film you really want to see, sure its packed full of the kind of crap you love to watch and so it was with me and Flavia the Heretic. I was sure this was a film made for me. Nuns, flagellation, the whole deal.

Oh dear, what a letdown. A film made well enough I have to say, but that wasn't my raison d'etre for wanting this film. I wanted to see plenty of nudity with a welter of sweaty floggings thrown in.

Flavia does get whipped and what a flop. We see nothing, the back of her dress is ripped down and that's it. They don't even tie her to a post, she's kneeling against a pole or something.

The sounds are good and I like the way the two young noviates stand by the door and look on with interest. I too would have stayed to watch had I been there, but on a gimp scale of 1-5 this just manages to scrape a 2 by virtue of the fact it is a flogging and the sound is cool. Here's the scene: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SV3R3zpskl4

We see a torture scene too. Sorry, there's no payoff here either. Firstly its not the prettiest nun in the convent and all the straps used to hold her down do nothing except hide what we all want to see. Why use all that paraphernalia just to keep her on the bench? What crap. We could have had a mouth watering racking scene here, complete with nudity, with a sweating, moaning victim and a creaking old rack, but no. They get to pour something hot on her is all. Then they cut off her nipple but it's totally uninspiring and a real letdown.

In the final reel, Flavia is tied to a tree and skinned alive. Sounds good? Er..sorry, no. Again all pretty short, long shots and besides, who wants to see a woman skinned unless it's with a whip?

As a film, Flavia was not half bad and pretty well portrayed with a handsome if not pretty nun, but not so lovely that she belonged on the catwalk, not the convent halls, so that assisted in its believability. The film needs to be remade. There's even a crucifixion in here. It all needed beefing up with long, lingering shots and gratuitous torture concentrating on the bits I really wanted to see the film for.