lastliberal Not a surprise that The Last House on the Left would have remakes. This is one of them with a twist - it is also a nunsploitation film.Florinda Bolkan (Flavia the Heretic) is Sister Cristina, who has some Catholic schoolgirls in a beach house rehearsing a play when some dastardly evildoers crash the party.The maid (Isabel Pisano) gets killed almost immediately and this serves to terrorize the group. When they strip the nun and make her put on her habit, the camera is on everyone but her. They even rape her off-camera. They did brutally rape one of the schoolgirls (Sherry Buchanan - Zombie 3), and raped and killed another with a stick.Sister Cristina has had enough. As one of the thieves is suffering and pleading for help, she put him out of his misery. She then shows her capability with his gun. All the girls join in and have their fun with the last one.Not nasty enough to be banned by Britain, but nasty enough.

capkronos Wes Craven's 1972 shocker THE LAST HOUSE ON THE LEFT (itself "inspired" by Bergman's THE VIRGIN SPRING) was such a popular and notorious film during its day that it spawned a whole slew of wannabes, imposters and imitators, particularly in Europe. Some of these movies were actually rip-offs, while others merely tried to cash in on the familiar title but actually had little else in common with Craven's film. At one point, distributors even tried to pass off Mario Bava's REAZIONE A CATENA (aka BAY OF BLOOD), filmed a year before "Last House," as a sequel. There was also "Hitch Hike: Last House on the Left" (better known as simply HITCH HIKE), "The New House on the Left" (aka NIGHT TRAIN MURDERS), THE HOUSE ON THE EDGE OF THE PARK (1980), LAST HOUSE ON DEAD END STREET (1977), TERROR EXPRESS (1979) and many others. The formula was pretty simple - have a group of criminals/thugs/ killers/psychos take a random group of people (normally women) hostage and proceed to humiliate, abuse, terrorize, rape and kill some of them off before allowing the survivors to turn the tables on their attackers and get revenge. And that brings us to Franco Prosperi's 1978 cash-in LAST HOUSE ON THE BEACH, which was originally filmed as LA SETTIMA DONNA (THE SEVENTH WOMAN) and was also released under the more generic title TERROR. It follows the above formula pace-for-pace, plot point-for-plot point and though it's watchable for the most part, it brings absolutely nothing new or all that interesting to the subgenre.Florinda Bolkan (who is too talented to be appearing in ripoffs such as this one) stars as Cristina, a teacher and sister-of-the-cloth who is spending an extended weekend at a remote beach house preparing for a Shakespeare performance with five female students. Elsewhere, three thugs; Aldo (Ray Lovelock), Walter (Flavio Andreini) and Nino (Stefano Cedrati), have just robbed a bank and left several dead bodies in their wake. They end up needing a place to hide out for a few days and stumble upon the beach house, where they quickly murder the maid (with an iron to the head) and take Cristina and her nubile students hostage. From then on out, the films plays out basically as a series of sexual humiliations, gropings, beatings, attempted rapes and actual rapes. The captors do such nice things as making Cristina strip and change into her nun's habit in front of her students, sticking their hands down the girls panties to see if they're still virgins and forcing Cristina to watch one of her students get bent over and raped (in slow motion, no less). The guys finally send Cristina over the edge when they rape one of the more troublesome girls, Eliza (Sherry Buchanan), to death with a cane. The final revenge exacted by the women is almost as bland as it is predictable.Though numerous scenarios play out in an unpleasant way, the film isn't nearly as harrowing or impactful as it could have been. One reason is the stereotypically obnoxious portrayal of the three bad guys, which is so frequently OTT and one-dimensionally sleazy that it detracts from the overall realism of the film. Another is the portrayal of the anonymous wide-eyed schoolgirls, who aren't allowed even a glimpse of individual personality. These are simply evil oversexed bad guys versus virginal cowering good girls of the cardboard cut-out variety that don't make one care much either way about what's going on to whom at any given time. Bolkan helps out the best she can. She's the type of actress who is able to convey a lot in a subtle, quiet way - minus the hysterics - and she did a fair job contrasting the grating OTT male attackers to an extent.So while this film is basically a lesser copy of something better (and even sits in the shadow of some of the other lesser imitations), it's still fairly well scored and photographed for what it is. The beach house setting itself was pretty good setting, and there's enough nudity, sleaze and sexual violence directed toward underage-looking teenage girls for those wanting to see that. Personally though, I can't say that I was all that impressed. There aren't very many suspenseful or thrilling moments, just lots of progressively tedious attacks scenes leading to a predictable and ho-hum finale.

Woodyanders A trio of vicious criminals -- charming, but ruthless leader Aldo (Ray Lovelock in fine wicked form), savage Walter (essayed with frightening intensity by Flavio Andreni), and ferocious Neanderthalic brute Nino (a positively simian portrayal by Stefano Cedrati) -- pull off a bank heist and seek refuge in an isolated seaside villa when their getaway car breaks down. The loathsome threesome terrorize a quintet of teenage Catholic schoolgirls and Sister Cristina (superbly played by Florinda Bolkan), the tough and resolute nun who's in charge of the girls. Naturally, the hoods have their foul way with several of the girls until Sister Cristina renounces her vows and exacts a harsh vengeance on the creeps. Director Franco Prosperi milks plenty of gut-wrenching tension from the grim and compelling story. Said story of course becomes more progressively mean and unpleasant as it unfolds, complete with rape, murder, humiliation, and the inevitable exciting last reel turn the tables revenge by the ladies on their vile and hateful tormentors. The startling outbursts of raw, ugly and strikingly stylized violence pack a really strong punch. This film further benefits from uniformly sound and credible acting from a capable cast: Lovelock excels as the deceptively laid-back and amiable Aldo (Lovelock also sings the cool hard-rocking theme song!), Andreni and Cedrati are genuinely repulsive and unappealing as a pair of extremely base and cruel degenerates, Bolkan does well as Sister Cristina, and Sherry Buchanan, Laura Tanziani, Laura Trotter, Karine Velier, and Annalisa Pesce are all quite fetching and believable as the scared and vulnerable schoolgirls. Roberto Pregadio's funky, syncopated score and Cristiano Pogany's sparkling widescreen cinematography are both up to snuff. A satisfying serving of in-your-face rough and unflinching celluloid sadism.

Coventry Another vile and rapidly edited Italian exploitation effort that just mildly succeeds in cashing in on the enormous 'popularity' of Wes Craven's horror landmark "Last House on the Left". Three bank robbers drive up to a remote beach house where they plan to hide from the police after a successful heist. Staying at the house at that moment are an attractive nun and five teenage girls under her supervision. The schoolgirls become the objects of violent torture games, vicious rapes and eventually murder. Bloody vengeance by the remaining girls and the nun is the inevitable consequence. What can be said about this type of cinema that hasn't been said a thousand times before? It's mean-spirited, sickening and not the type of film to watch if you already feel a bit depressed. Peculiar, however, is that the victims of these rape-flicks continue to get younger and more innocent. I suppose it's some sort of competition among the directors to be the sickest bastard of all? How else do you get the crazy idea of exploiting sexual aggression towards teenage girls? The girls in "Last House on the Beach" barely look 15 years old, so mission accomplished for director Franco Prosperi, but the overall tone of the film isn't half as offensive or shocking as Ruggero Deodato's "House on the Edge of the Park" or Meir Zachi's infamous "I spit on your Grave". Not recommended, unless of course if you're on a sole mission to watch every rape/revenge flick ever made. In that case, you can watch this one on par with "Late Night Trains" and "Terror Express", which are equally bad.