Nurse, The (DVD)
Mike Phalin
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Starring Lisa Zane and Michael Fairman
Directed by Rob Malenfant
Distributed by Echo Bridge Home Entertainment
Robert Malenfant’s The Nurse has been sitting in some forgotten closet for the past 10 years, never managing to gain a DVD release until now. Why such the long wait? Was it worth it? Not many seem to remember this revenge thriller from 1997, and we are about to find out why.
Laura Harriman does well by her job as a hospital nurse. She is well known and well liked by her fellow staff members, but her family is not as shiny. You see, her father will soon be sent to prison after being pegged as an embezzler at his company. Unable to cope with the thought of the family name in ruin and being the newest bitch in the state pen, daddy dearest goes on a shooting spree, killing Laura’s brothers before turning the gun on himself. Now that her entire family is gone, someone has to be held accountable.
Her father’s accuser, the wealthy Bob Martin, suffers a stroke upon hearing the news of the murder/suicide. The stroke has left Mr. Martin totally paralyzed and in need of constant care. This opens up the perfect opportunity for Laura to sneak in and extract her revenge one family member at a time. What follows is the most by the book thriller one could imagine. Oh the joy!!!
Like many would expect, this generic film does not even attempt to break any molds. Lisa Zane’s Laura is never likable or even sympathetic thanks to the little information we are given about her. It isn’t until the end that we find out she has a husband who never shares screen time with her. All we know is that she is pissed and taking out her anger on a family who is innocent.
Along the way she does away with several members of the Martin household in the usual plain ways. Most of the deaths involve an injection that will make everything look like an accident. She is so sure of her plan that Laura hardly cares if she leaves nasty marks on her victims where she viciously stabs them with syringes. I might not be an autopsy expert, but damage to a body that looks like a needle has entered the skin just prior to death sure sounds suspicious. However, even with this immature detective work the police never raise an eyebrow even as the body count rises. What a surprise.
Like many other movies that share the same piss poor execution, The Nurse ends on a very anticlimactic note. Hell, it ends just the same way the last two or three direct-to-DVD films have: Two women duke it out, and the villain is either shot once, run over or just hit over the head with some household object. Cut and paste anyone? Why did it become a bad thing for women to just beat the crap out of each other in a brutal manner?
No screwing around with this one; The Nurse is probably the most boring, predictable and generic thriller to ever be printed on DVD. The entire production hardly even passes as a made-for-TV movie, and this thing actually had a theatrical release! Who are films like The Nurse marketed toward? Housewives who lack the means to go down to the local video store and rent a better movie?! If this thing was unbearable on DVD, just imagine at how much it would hurt if you had paid to see this in 1997.
Fuck, medieval torture has evolved and is slowly making a comeback thanks to films like these. Somewhere there is a dungeon where unlucky souls are strapped to chairs watching The Nurse, The Rival and The Perfect Marriage back to back. Do not rent this movie. Do not even look at the cover. Just count yourselves lucky that someone else bit the bullet in order to warn others about its infectious shittiness.
Special Features
10 years since it was made and not one special feature?
1 out of 5
Special Features:
0 out of 5
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