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.

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.

As its re-titling suggests, LAST HOUSE ON THE BEACH is one of the many rip-offs that came out in the wake of Wes Craven's terrifying shocker LAST HOUSE ON THE LEFT. Each film is caught in a '70s time capsule of sleaze and perversion, depicting innocent young women being terrorised by ruthless criminals. There are two types of rip-off in this case: the low budget US grindhouse flick, and the Italian knock-off. LAST HOUSE ON THE BEACH is one of the latter and it's one of the most boring of the rip offs I've seen. I'd admit right away that these films aren't my idea of entertainment anyway; I'll watch them for the sake of completeness, but I'd rather watch a gore or kung fu flick than see women being raped.

Of the ones I've seen, the little-known DAY OF VIOLENCE has been the best and has this one beat hands down. The problem with LAST HOUSE ON THE BEACH is that there's a lot of sitting around and waiting around in between the inevitable bursts of violence, and there's no tension or suspense to be had during these long, drawn out moments. There's a certain repetitiveness to the action which makes this one a chore to watch. For me, these types of hostage films should be all about the suspense but there's little to none here.

Instead, what we do get are a couple of deeply unpleasant rape sequences which are played out in bizarre slow motion. It's as if director Franco Prosperi saw Sam Peckinpah's unique editing during the rape of Susan George in STRAW DOGS so decided to try and make his own rape scenes as unforgettable. It certainly highlights the cruelty of the criminals and one scene, involving a woman impaled on a guy's walking stick, crosses way over the line of taste and decency. The only good thing is that the film is far from graphic, keeping things off screen so the viewer uses their imagination instead, but in a way this makes the horrors only more effective. I don't think I'm spoiling too much to say that the trio end up getting their just desserts, but this is annoying as the punishment definitely doesn't fit the crime and is over all too soon (unlike in the Craven film).

A few neat camera tricks – disguising the participants in the robbery to begin with, for instance – help to lift this one a little, and there's also a good cast of Euro stalwarts doing their bit. Lead Florinda Bolkan, subject to much humiliation here, was familiar from lots of '70s giallo flicks like Lucio Fulci's DON'T TORTURE A DUCKLING, as well as playing the title role in FLAVIA THE HERETIC (clearly the inspiration for her role as a nun here). Ray Lovelock is well known for his turn as the hero of THE LIVING DEAD AT THE MANCHESTER MORGUE, and he carved out a niche in quite a few crime flicks as well. Victims Laura Trotter and Sherry Buchanan starred in a couple of zombie flicks, NIGHTMARE CITY and ZOMBIE HOLOCAUST respectively. Director Franco Prosperi was no stranger to exploitation, having been the guy who kicked off the mondo genre with 1962's MONDO CANE. This is far from his best film.