Known in its native Italy as La Settima Donna (The Seventh Woman), Last House On The Beach opens with three hoodlums (Ray Lovelock, Flavio Andreini, and Stefano Cedrati) robbing a bank and making their speedy getaway towards the coast after killing two innocent people (awarding them the titles of robbers-turned-murderers), where the come across a charming beach house (the last one at that) inhabited by a middle-aged woman, Cristina (Florinda Bolkan), five young nubile teenage girls (including Luisa Maneri, Laura Trotter, and Sherry Buchanan)… who look suspiciously like they’re in their mid-to-late twenties.

The men invade the house, kill the maid, and hold the women hostage (making them robbers-turned-murderers-turned-kidnappers)… planning to stay at the (last) beach house for a few days for no better reason than the good ol’ “because we can” policy that has helped so many people in the past. Well, normally, you’d think that, being wanted for both robbery and murder and having the police searching for you and all, you’d want to get a move on… but, no, these boys are perfectly content with lounging around with their captive Catholics by the ocean.

“What? Did he say ‘Catholics’?”, you ask? Yes, I did! It turns out that Cristina is actually a nun and the young ladies are her virgin students (we have officially crossed over into the nunsploitation genre, people)… a discovery that causes the horny robbers-turned-murderers-turned-kidnappers to add “rapists” to their repertoire by the end of the film.

Last House On The Beach tends to be a little on the rough side at times, but its level of brutality comes nowhere near the famous flick that inspired it and the humiliation/rape scenes are done in a “tasteful” enough manner (if such a thing is possible?): Cristina has her clothes torn off and is forced to dress in her nun’s habit before all, but most of the footage is comprised of cutaway reaction shots; while one poor girl is manhandled, the camera focuses on her perpetrators in slo-mo… giving us an uneasy and long glimpse at their faces. Perhaps director Franco Prosperi (no stranger to this sort of filmmaking: he brought us the first two Mondo Cane films in addition to Adios Africa and Goodbye Uncle Tom) was hoping his low-budget attempt to cash in on that other movie would linger in our minds the same way. Unfortunately, it doesn’t quite make the grade in that respect, but as a trashy cheesy late-night Cable TV Italian rip-off kind of a movie, it succeeds admirably.

Fans of Eurotrash Cinema will no doubt love the film for the cast alone (and their connection to famous genre directors): bad guy Ray Lovelock was the doomed hero in Jorge Grau’s epic zombie chiller Let Sleeping Corpses Lie a few years before, Florinda Bolkan starred as Flavia The Heretic and in Lucio Fulci’s A Lizard In A Woman’s Skin (among others), Sherry Buchanan (who always seems to get killed in every movie she’s in) will always be remembered for her part in Zombi Holocaust (not to mention Tentacles… what the hell happened to Sherry anyway?), while Laura Trotter played opposite Hugo Stiglitz in Umberto Lenzi’s immortal Nightmare City and Luisa Maneri can be seen as Ugo Tognazzi’s future daughter-in-law in the original La Cage Aux Folles, appears with The Last House On The Left star David Hess in Ruggero Deodato’s Bodycount, and has a part in Luigi Cozzi’s The Black Cat as well!

Presentation
As usual, Severin has managed to turn manure into a masterpiece: the transfer for Last House On The Beach is very nice. There were no noticeable defects, the image (while a bit soft at times -- probably deliberate) is clean, and the colors (while maybe a little mute) are well balanced. The movie is presented in its original 2.35:1 ratio and is enhanced for widescreen TVs.

As this is the International cut, the only audio option here is the Mono Stereo English-dubbed track, which comes through loud and clear.

Extras
A few Special Features accompany this release, the first of which is the Featurette Holy Beauty vs. The Evil Beasts (28:30) is an Interview with star Ray Lovelock. The Featurette is in Italian with English Subtitles. Also included is the original Italian Theatrical Trailer (2:51) and an outrageous German Theatrical Trailer (2:53) which bears the title In Den Klauen Des Schakals. Comparing the English print of the film and the Italian Trailer (which are very identical) to the German Trailer is quite hilarious: the German version contains completely different dialogue and is so exploitive in its nature that it hurts.

On a side note to collectors: the Austrian R2 PAL release of the film (which was released in the first quarter of 2007) has more in the way of Special Features. It has the two Trailers and the Ray Lovelock Featurette (which it was produced for), as well as some German Opening Credits and a Bonus CD of Roberto Pregadio’s oft-funky score.

The Bottom Line
Last House On The Beach tends (or at least tries) to be a bit of a roughie, but isn’t that brutal of a film overall...which is probably for the best.