Women in Horror: Nurse 3D

Abby Russell is a nurse by day and a vigilante of sorts by night. She finds cheating married men, lures them with her feminine wiles, and then kills them because she considers them scum. At her day job, Danni, a new nurse that she has been mentoring, graduates, but freezes on her first day on the job. Abby has become obsessed with Danni and is angered when she goes to her boyfriend for help and comfort. Abby’s solution is to take her out drinking, drug her, have random men rape her, and then rape her herself. Danni is horrified and just wants to move on with her life and forget about the horrible night. However, Abby was expecting a completely different reaction and sets out to make her life a living hell.

I had middling expectations watching Nurse 3D. I am wary of any film with 3D in the title because that means gimmicky 3D scenes that don’t actually add to the story in any way, but I wasn’t prepared for the true awfulness that is Nurse 3D. The story is a weird hodgepodge of a bunch of different films, namely Single White Female and Fatal Attraction. It really wants to be American Psycho, but is so off base, lacking the satire, good acting, good directing, etc. I like the storyline where Abby kills cheating men because it’s interesting and hasn’t been done about a thousand times before like the obsession story line. Unfortunately, after the opening scene, it barely gets any mention. The kills that follow sometimes follow that formula, but are mostly focused on killing those that are hurting Danni. The only other mention is the super cheesy flashback that shows her killing her cheating father when she was a child. The Single White Female story line was frankly boring and offensive. Rape is not a great way to start a relationship with someone and those scenes were unfortunately shown as titillating and never acknowledged as rape.

Paz de la Huerta is a gorgeous woman and certainly looks the part of Abby as sexy and sultry. Unfortunately, her acting is horribly wooden. I think she was going for emotionless detachment, but it came across as simply inept. She is just trying too hard to be sexy, when she accomplishes it with little to no effort. Her voice came off as a bored phone sex operator. I really wanted to like her character, but she lacked the charisma and wit to pull it off. Her dialog is way too obvious and ham handed, with such gems as this: “There was actually moisture trickling down my leg. Larry made me cum after all.” Simply cringeworthy. 

Nurse 3D is an awful movie. I was expecting a campy, fun, bloody film like Machete, but I got a horrible story, wooden acting, and a script that defies logic and requires a huge suspension of disbelief. To counteract its failings, loads of gratuitous female nudity are employed. If that’s all the viewers are looking for, there is plenty of porn with better acting. Instead of so bad it’s good, this film is so bad it’s practically unwatchable.

My rating: 2/10 fishmuffins