The Last House on the Beach/Comments

• Three criminals hold up a bank and head up the Italian coast to find a place to hide, luckily for them they come across an all girls school run by a nun named Sister Cristina (Florinda Bolkan). The schoolgirls happen to be dressed up in costumes rehearsing the play A Midsummer Nights Dream. When the three thugs led by the blond haired Aldo (Ray Lovelock) burst in, things turn into a A Midsummer Nightmare. These guys waste no time with the violence. Walter (Flavio Andreini) finds one of the girls trying to flee so he proceeds to bitchslap her about 10 times then clocks her in the head with a clothes iron. What the film gives you is the standard "guys holding girls hostage" plot. While Walter and Nino (Stefano Cedrati) are just flat out mean, cold blooded killers, Aldo is the "nice" one. He actually talks with the girls as opposed to just raping them and beating them up. There is one drawn out rape sequence in slow motion, although we only see it from the front with Nino making motions and smiling as if hes riding a hobby horse. To make things a little weirder, it seems Walter likes to wear women's makeup, so he has his face done up like a Mexican hooker while he holds the girl down to help out. For the rest of the film, the girls try to figure out a way to escape to get help while Aldo & Co. plan to leave when the coast (literally) is clear. Last House on The Beach is not really much of an improvement on The Virgin Spring storyline which later was remade as the grindhouse shock classic The Last House On The Left, it definitely doesnt have the same sense of dread or thrills. Its basically just a watered down version of that film. But if you happen to be a big fan of Ray Lovelock (Live Like A Cop, Die Like A Man) or Franco Prosperi (Goodbye Uncle Tom) you might want to complete your collection and pick this sleazy re-remake up. --Pete