Nurse just kind of sucked. I don't really know what I was hoping for - Single White Female in nurse outfits? Kind of. Gratuitous nudity? Yep. Some kitschy gore and questionable gender politics - I guess... but still the whole thing just didn't work for me. I felt like it kind of wanted to latch onto a pulpy storytelling style but stay kind of grounded at the same time - and the two tones just didn't mesh in a good way. Plus, bad acting, too many loose ends story-wise, and too much CGI gore.
Nurse is about a couple of nurses - Danni Rodgers (Katrina Bowden) is a new hire fresh out of Nursing School, and her assigned mentor, Abby Russell (Paz de la Huerta), who is a well tenured nurse but also a crazy murder. Abby is mostly well-liked by her coworkers at the hospital, but her side job is killing "married lying scum... [that] destroy unsuspecting families" - just the cheating *men* of course. In fact, before the opening credits role, we see Abby, "look[ing] like a slut" (her words, not mine) tempting a married man before she seduces him, slices his femoral artery, taunts him, and then throws him off a building. So there's no mystery here - you know right of the bat she's crazy, and enjoys killing people.
But I guess she's also really into Danni - after Danni has a fight with her boyfriend and a rough first day at work, Abby invites Danni "out for a drink." Which means "roofie (is that a verb?) and rape her," I guess. But she also brings some random club guy home with them and has him rape her too, and takes lots of pictures for future blackmail. (This barely happens onscreen, but it's still sexual assault.) Anyways, Danni wakes up the next day with little recollection of what happened, and starts turning away Abby's advances, saying "let's just do lunch and shopping next time." Abby's all crazy, like "screw you bitch, no one understands you like I do," and since she's crazy she goes about making Danni's life a living hell. Including some murders that she pins on Danni, because cops are stupid. Danni's onto her, but Abby is crafty... is Danni, or anyone she loves, safe from this crazy Nurse?
One of the biggest issues with Nurse is the tone. I think it's going for a campy/grindhousey feel - and there are times where it succeeds. But it's just really tough for $10 million studio pictures to do that, you know? I feel like on the surface it's doing all of the things a B-Movie would normally do (blood, unbelievable story lines, gratuitous sex/nudity), but does them in a way that feels like it's embarrassed by them. The blood/violence is often way too CGI. Story lines are generally not well handled - I feel like in a true B-Movie, just being stupid is okay. Stupid things in Nurse are either over-explained (Abby's background) or dropped completely (what even happens to Danni anyways?). De la Huerta is scantily clad/nude a *lot* in this movie, but they sometimes explain it away ("as a disguise"). And there are like 4-5 other times where Danni's character just *would* be nude in your standard B-movie - shower scenes/changing/whatever. I'm not saying there needs to be nudity for her character, but why even put her in that situation if you don't have to? Just accept the fact that you're making a pervy movie for pervy people... there's nothing wrong with that.
Also, de la Huerta just didn't work for me in the role of Abby. She does this whole voiceover thing throughout the film to explain why she's doing what she is, and I don't know if it's the tone of her voice, or her delivery, or what - but I wasn't buying it. She just generally sounds disinterested. I've definitely liked her in other movies, but I think she's just wrong for the whole maniacal-mastermind role. The rest of the acting is passable - Bowden is a little bland but serviceable, and Judd Nelson and Kathleen Turner are both notable for showing up (and not much else). I guess the highlight for me was Niecy Nash as one of Danni's coworkers. I mostly know her from Reno 911!, and she gets the only really comedic scenes in Nurse. She only gets a few fleeting scenes, but she's pretty much the only reliably enjoyable thing in the film.
Up until the climax, that is. The violence in Nurse is bloody but still pretty lame for most of the film - Abby gets some dude cornered and is about to have sex with him, and then does something crazy (but not all that creative). But at the end (SPOILER) when she's been found out and cornered she goes on a spree that is actually pretty brutal and entertaining. So the last 10 minutes or so are kind of fun - although it quickly gets spoiled by just completely ignoring the fate of a major character, but whatever. At least they saved the best for last.
But it still doesn't save the film. Maybe bumps it up from "I really wish I hadn't watched this" to "I wish I hadn't watched this." Apparently, Nurse sat on the shelf for a couple of years before it got picked up for distribution - never a good sign. That and the over-abundance of voiceover work to tell the story leads me to believe that there may have been some fundamental flaws in the thing to begin with - or maybe the tone it was shot with didn't mesh with the tone Lionsgate wanted. Whatever - it's still bad.
I would not recommend this film.
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