The Last House on the Beach (1978)

Director - Franco Prosperi



The godfather of the Mondo film does a rape/revenge rip-off flick, and he fails miserably. Taking the obvious cue from Wes Craven's landmark Last House on the Left (1972) and the Swedish Thriller: A Cruel Picture (1974) Franco Prosperi contributes another meaningless "Last House..." copycat movie with no substance, no style, and certainly no meaning.

The movie is a match up of the aforementioned flicks, and a small bit of Nunsploitation thrown in for good measure. The thing is, the nun angle is thrown in to seem more clever, or original, both of which this movie is not. It's a pointless angle given to the audience for "shocks". Not that there is anything wrong with that kind of exploitation in these kinds of movies, it's just that Nunsploitation has the be the most boring and uninteresting sub-genre ever. If it's not at the top of the list of useless pieces of shit, it's working it's way up there.

I'll cut to the chase. Italy's good looking bad boy (aka total doucher), Ray Lovelock (The Living Dead at Manchester Morgue, Live Like a Cop Die Like a Man, etc) is one of three dudes that knock off a bank. On their way out of town their car dies, and they stop at a big secluded house on the beach. The house is a retreat/getaway for a Nun and her really young school students where they are practicing a play of A Midsummer Night's Dream. They bust in there, rape some chicks, be super obnoxious, and make no sense while doing so. A tangent of long drawn out sequences take place where the gang gets booze, feels up the nun, yada, yada, yada. It's awful. It's slow, it's not really "shocking" or as in your face as it's contemporary knock-off flicks. The girls get revenge, but it's not that sweet, it's just fast and stupid.

If you're looking to get into these kinds of movies, the first step you've already taken is probably checking out Meir Zarchi's I Spit on Your Grave (1978) since that seems to be the easily accessible first flick after Wes Craven's little movie. I'd highly suggest skipping this one (unless you're a completest/lonely loser like yours truly) and go right for Aldo Lado's epic rip-off, The Night Train Murders (1975) and of course Ruggero Deodata's House on the Edge of the Park (1980). Those movies, while pretty awful, are rife with nasty un-lovable characters (David Hess, Giovanni Lombaro Radice, etc) and loads of cathartic revenge, and unspeakable torture/degradation. More fun than this piece of slow movie dog shit. One of the only pluses in this one is Florinda Bolkan who is great in Lucio Fulci's first two giallo, A Lizard in a Woman's Skin (1971), and Don't Torture a Duckling (1972) but is pretty stale in this one, still decent to watch.

I will give it to Prosperi for raping a girl to death with a stick in this movie. However he lost me because the scene is in slow motion and is really disgustingly drawn out, past the point of exploitative nonsense and right into fetishistic/perverse territory. What more would you expect from the asshole who made the Mondo Cane movies?

Skip this one. Watch something better. Also I'm pretty sure this is the same Prosperi who did the Mondo movies, but after looking around I've found it might not be? Mystery is still out on who is responsible for this one.

2/10

-Keith