Villainess Review: Sister Francis & Sister Ruth (The Amityville Moon)

Other than the MLB Postseason and the return of hockey, one of the things I love about October is Halloween, which gets celebrated all month long with a plethora of new horror films. Among this year's batch was The Amityville Moon, and as a big time horror fan, I'm quite familiar with the Amityville saga. I was very elated about this film, however, as after 47 years and many, many films, Amityville finally tackles a sub-genre I've been a fan of for so long: werewolves.

A halfway house served as the main setting, and as the film's beginning showed, the area had been plagued by something partially human. This includes another part of the opening scene, where two of the house's inmates, Alissa and Karla, were heading out through the window, only for Karla to be attacked and killed by the beast, while Alissa escaped. Alissa and Karla's disappearance served as the main mission for detective Robbie Kimball, who appeared at the house (named St. Mathias) and was greeted by Father Peter and Sister Ruth, who ran the house together. We were also introduced to Sister Francis, but her first scene saw her bedridden--apparently ill, though we see her eyes open.

We also see more mayhem at the house as the werewolf appears and does a horrific number on one of the girls, Nikki, before killing her. The film's progression shows Sister Francis being taken care of once again, but the scene also gives us this:

Yeah, that's not suspicious at all. Anyway, another girl, Rosita, falls victim to the beast, and as for Kimball, he finds Alissa, who reveals the truth: Karla was killed, and the culprit was a werewolf--a story that originally is met with disbelief from Kimball. All the while, Mandi, who was originally sent to deliver Francis' dinner (Rosita went in her place earlier), entered Francis' room, and it was in this scene where Francis rises up and takes a whiff of a plastic bag held by Mandi, while mentioning Karla and holding Mandi in her twisted clutches.

Francis later transforms into a werewolf in front of a horrified Mandi, who runs off and becomes the subject of Francis' later pursuit. The evil Francis caught and killed Mandi, and later went on a malevolent rampage afterwards, with Kimball and Alissa hiding out and being pursued. In a crazy twist, Kimball's attempt to go after the she-wolf is thwarted by Father Peter, who stated that he couldn't let Kimball hurt her, while Alissa finds a photo of Francis, Peter, and Ruth together. After Peter kills Kimball, he is confronted a gun-wielding Alissa in a scene which revealed the entire truth.

As Peter revealed, he and Francis were husband and wife, and some time ago, they went to one of Sister Ruth's missions in Brazil, where Francis was attacked by a werewolf. Peter and Ruth both witnessed Francis' first transformation, and they worked on attempts to cure her and curb her appetite. Francis was fed raw meat, but that wasn't working, as Francis became more aggressive and maniacal--and began to crave things that still had a pulse. So Peter and Ruth worked together to feed Frances' evil desires, and it was the latter of the pair who decided to send each of the girls to Francis as her victims. After Peter was killed by Alissa, Ruth appeared and was mauled to death by Francis, who ended up shot with silver bullets by Alissa.

Sister Ruth: So this film gave us not one, but two villainesses, and I'll start with the minor hidden villainess in Sister Ruth. I should have figured that Ruth was evil; anyone who acts that genial has to be hiding something. Ruth was every bit as monstrous as Francis; willing to not only feed Francis' sinister appetite, but using the girls in her plan. I can't help but go back to two particular scenes from Ruth: the one where she instructs Mandi to serve dinner to Francis was quite a creepy one, and the second scene where Ruth sees Mandi and is stunned, as she figured that Mandi had done what she asked.

Sister Ruth was played by Tuesday Knight, who is best known for playing Kristen Parker in The Dream Master, the fourth film in the Nightmare on Elm Street series--replacing Patricia Arquette in the role. Knight played Ruth's false geniality very well, as well as the ability to mask Ruth's true sinister colors--a terrific performance overall.

For Sister Ruth's profile on Villainous Beauties Wiki, click here.

Sister Francis: I watched the trailer to this last month, and it did give away Sister Francis as the werewolf. I was so elated over this, not only because the film gave us an evil female werewolf, but also because of the woman playing her: Katarina Leigh Waters. Waters has actually done her share of acting before, but she is best known for her career as a professional wrestler. Waters competed in WWE under the name Katie Lea for four years (counting her time in OVW), and afterwards, she joined Impact Wrestling as Winter, where she held the Knockouts Tag Team Championship once, and the Knockouts Championship twice. Waters made a brief return to Impact under her real first name, Katarina, and had also competed at WOW - Women of Wrestling as The Temptress. For most of her career, Waters acted as a heel, so it's no surprise that she would give such a terrific performance as a heel in this film.

Plain and simple, Sister Francis was vicious, bloodthirsty, and immensely psychotic. She was a villainess who definitely embraced her malevolent persona, and truly had pleasure in killing innocents to satisfy her immense hunger. I really loved Francis' transformation scene, obviously because we see a woman making such a beastly transformation, but also because no CGI was involved. It's 2021. Literally everything is done with computers, including TF scenes in werewolf films. I can't stand CGI TFs; they look too airbrushed. The old-fashioned way is best, and it was epic to see Waters in the makeup as part of the TF scene. Overall, Waters played Francis' evil demeanor to absolute perfection; it was just epic.

For Sister Francis' profile on Villainous Beauties Wiki, click here.

Katarina Waters joins a long list of female wrestlers who have played villainesses outside of the squared circle. Among that list is WWE Hall of Famer Trish Stratus, who appeared as the evil Gina in the film, Gridlocked. For my review on Stratus' heel character in that film, click here.

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