The Last House on the Beach (1978)

The Worst Film Ever

Powerful

Good movie but grossly overrated

Absolutely Fantastic

A nasty piece of exploitative Eurosleaze, Franco Prosperi's "The Last House on the Beach" (1978) yet tells a very simple story. In the film, a trio of particularly brutish thugs, led by the handsome Aldo (Ray Lovelock), breaks into a hilltop mansion to lay low after a violent bank heist. Too bad that the house they've chosen at random is occupied by a quintet of Catholic schoolgirls, presided over by Sister Cristina (cult Eurostar Florinda Bolkan). The three goons waste little time before starting to rape and kill the young women, until Cristina decides that...well, nun or no nun, she's mad as hell and isn't going to take it anymore! The vengeance that she and the younger ladies dish out on their persecutors is both a swift and satisfying one. I must add that despite the plot's simplicity, this film proved a bit hard to watch at times, largely due to the convincing performances by Stefano Cedrati and Flavio Andreini as those other two maniacs; they really do make for thoroughly hateful characters. Florinda, as usual, is impeccable, and the film offers up some additional pleasures in the form of lovely oceanside scenery (a stark contrast to the ugliness transpiring inside the house; wherever did they film this?) and a dynamic, propulsive score by Roberto Pregadio; the piece of music that accompanies Aldo's pursuit of Eliza (the prettiest of the girls, IMHO) down the hillside to the sea is especially dynamite. Prosperi directs his film to ensure a good deal of suspense, and in all, this is a pretty darn gripping presentation, with, thankfully, little in the way of explicit violence (what is suggested is quite terrible enough!). This nice-looking Severin DVD also includes a 1/2-hour interview with the still hunky Lovelock of today, during which the Italian confirms that "Ray Lovelock" IS indeed his real name. The actor's sincerity and charm make the character of Aldo seem, if possible, all the more monstrous.

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.

Here's another Last House on the Left cash-in, this one comes from notorious Mondo filmmaker Franco Prosperi.After pulling a bank robbery, three thugs (Ray Lovelock, Flavio Andreini & Stefano Cedrati) seek a place to hide out for awhile. They stumble upon an isolated beach house and decide to crash there for a few days. The house is owned by the nearby Catholic School, and Sister Cristina (Florinda Bolkan) and five of her female students are occupying it for a few days as they study for upcoming exams.The men break in and hold the women hostage, and while searching the house to make sure there's no one else around, one of them comes across a maid hiding in the basement – he slaps her around a bit then caves her head in with an iron, promptly killing her. Another of the men finds one of the girls in the bathroom getting dressed and makes unwanted advances towards her; she swiftly grabs a comb and stabs the pointed handle deep into his leg, crippling him for the remainder of the film.When we meet Sister Cristina she is dressed in civilian clothes but as soon as the men discover she is a nun they force her to undress in front of her students and put her habit on. Later on two of them viciously rape her in the wine cellar. The action pretty much never leaves the interior of the house and moves pretty slow as the men lounge around sunbathing and drinking wine (the wounded one even finds time to read a bit of William Faulkner!?).Eventually the ladies manage to do away with their captors as Sister Cristina gives the wounded man a lethal injection, shoots the 2nd man and one of her students blasts the last thug in the stomach with a shotgun. When he refuses to die all five girls beat him to death with sticks! Overall this flick isn't too nasty, shocking or even that entertaining, especially when compared to some of the far superior Last House knock-offs: House on the Edge of the Park, Last House on Dead End Street, Night Train Murders, etc. Although it does contain a few notable scenes: the creepy slo-mo rape of one of the girls set to a ''trippy'' acid-rock score, the violent - although non-graphic - rape-with-a-stick scene (again in slo-mo), a bizarre scene where the men force the girls to watch naked disco dancing on TV while they molest them (!?), and the aforementioned beaten-to-death-with-sticks scene.Some of you will recognize Florinda Bolkan from Flavia the Heretic, A Lizard in a Woman's Skin or Don't Torture a Duckling, Ray Lovelock from Let Sleeping Corpses Lie, Murder Rock or Autopsy and one of the female students as Susan Kelly from Zombie Holocaust. It also features a fantastic upbeat score from Roberto Pregadio (SS Experiment Camp, White Cannibal Queen, and SS Camp 5: Women's Hell). Recommended to rape / revenge completists and fans of Italian sleaze. 6/10

Three armed bank robbers hold a nun and several young women hostage. The girls are subsequently raped and tortured and subjected to many degrading activites. But when one of the girls is murdered after being violated with a caine they decide to take revenge, a bloodbath follows.If you enjoy terror movies then this one is definatley worth tracking down.