Wednesday, August 17, 2016

SCHOOL OF THE HOLY BEAST (1974)

"I can smell the foul odor of witches..."

Did you know that a full proof way of detecting if a woman is a witch or not is to pour a few gallons of salt water down her throat and then have her piss directly onto an image of Christ?  It's true!  If the urine touches Jesus then she's a witch and if miraculously the piss doesn't touch Christ's image then she's innocent.  As easy as that!

Free-spirited teenager Maya (Yumi Takigawa) goes undercover in a convent to find out what happened to her mother who used to be a nun there 18 years ago.  What she discovers is these nuns are pretty wild.  Lesbian sex, drinking and beatings are just the beginning.  These psychos are also into torture and murder!

SCHOOL OF THE HOLY BEAST's story might not be the greatest thing ever written, but it gets the job done and the direction by Noribumi Suzuki (who also co-wrote the script) is really good.  I loved the look and feel of the film.  It was just cool.  Strange story, bizarre camera angles, non-stop blasphemy, attractive nuns, incest, steady pace with lots of torture and female nudity.  What's there not to like?