Convent of the Sacred Beast

When a young woman named Maya(Yumi Takigawa)decides to investigate her mother's death by entering a convent school,she discovers a horrific den of pleasure and sadomasochistic activities.Encounters with a randy archbishop and a lesbian mother superior lead to episodes of torture,which include the poor girl being bound topless by thorny vines and beaten with long-stemmed roses.Norifumi Suzuki's "School of the Holy Beast" is a chock full of sleaze,violence and blasphemy.Still the film is visually stunning and the use of colors is execellent.The script pulls no punches in criticizing the hypocrisy of the Catholic church.The story is interesting,the nudity is expicit and there is plenty of symbolism.Overall,I enjoyed this film very much and you should too,if you are a fan of sleazy nunsploitation sub-genre.9 out of 10.

School of the Holy Beast (1974)

*** (out of 4)

Notorious Japanese nunsploitation film from director Norifumi Suzuki has a simple storyline but borrows heavily from the Euro erotic genre. A rebellious woman enters a convent so she can learn the truth behind her mother's death eighteen years earlier. Her rebel attitude doesn't sit too well with the higher up nuns who aren't afraid to resort to torture by whip. The first half of the film is mostly an erotic movie and I'm not going to lie, Japanese women are quite sexy so the erotic nature of the film worked for me. Japan censorship laws were pretty heavy back in the day so the director comes up with a couple very good scenes to get his point across without having to resort to hardcore scenes, ala Euro flicks. There's an oral sex scene, which isn't shown how you'd expect but it's highly erotic and gets its sexuality across better than most Euro films of this genre. The second half of the film slows down quite a bit as the "mystery" surrounding the mother's death is revealed. The direction is quite strong and the cinematography is excellent.

This is a beautifully shot movie and is definitely not a cheaply made porn. It's made to stand up as a legitimate movie and entertainment for adults.

Maya Takigawa (Yumi Takigawa) is enjoying her last day of freedom, having a wild time, because tomorrow, she will be entering a convent. She meets a good looking guy Kenta Aoki (Hayato Tani) and becomes friends with him. He wants to go steady with her but she declines. What's driving her to enter the convent ? 18 years ago her mother was at this convent and committed suicide while being pregnant with her. She aborts early but survives. She's now on a mission to find out why her mother had to die and who is her father. After she enters the convent, it's nonstop erotic violence with nuns beating up each other in name of God with beautiful breastages, and naked bodies shown at every opportunity.

The movie is high quality as it has real story, beautiful "real" actresses who can actually act, and crisp cinematography that's top notch.

How did such far out, and excellent movie come out from a rather conservative Toho studio ? I can put all the credit squarely on the director Norifumi Suzuki's capable talent. Suzuki is not well known in the west because he himself prefers not to be in the front line, but he is an unmistakable genius of Japanese cinema, and have directed many famous (and some considered masterpieces) of movies and movie series such as "Torrakku Yaro" (Trucker Guy) series starring Bunta Sugawara and "Hibotan Bakuto" (Hibotan Gambler) series starring Junko Fuji. Sugawara and Fuji both became famous after starring in Suzuki's movies. Suzuki's movies are all known to be somewhat eccentric and squarely focused on entertainment value. He is very versatile as he can direct movies of many different genre all with very high quality.

Seijyu Gakuen (Holy Beast School) gets all it's quality and entertainment values from the talent of its director. Beautiful Yumi Takigawa makes her debut in this movie, and she enjoys a long career as a movie and TV actress in the proceeding years.

School of the Holy Beast is a weird concoction of exploitation who's very unusualness makes it worth watching. A girl enjoys her last night of freedom before entering a convent. The convent, of course, turns out to be a hotbed of immorality that de Sade might have scripted. Expect plenty of flagellation, lesbian trysts, and displaying of breasts – all in a style that crosses Hammer Horror with Russ Meyer mammary voyeurism. But throw in a script that plays hard and loose with Christianity in a way that only a foreign country could and it starts to appeal for its sheer audacity. I found the scene of one of the nun's punishment - being tied with rose briers and then whipped with bunches of red roses particularly aesthetically pleasing.

Or as with any other Nunsploitation movie: She'll have nun of that. Works every time like a charm, though I reckon this may only be the third or fourth one of these that I have seen. Still I'll keep believing (pun intended) in finding the ultimate one. This one right here isn't really bad. Most of the time it doesn't make much sense (I guess you have to be nude and show off your breasts for some reason), but it is sort of fun. If you're into bondage that is.

Apart from the already mentioned, that goes way deeper than 50 shades went (at least the movie, haven't read the book yet), this attempt on making a somewhat coherent story is really convoluted and it will be difficult to actually stay with it. Just pray you don't lose yourself. Then again it seems like those who lost themselves are doing mighty fine. Though they didn't expect the main actress to appear (something she didn't expect either, if you were to believe her interview on the disc).

I already wrote more than I thought I would, but somehow the whole thing was intriguing. Especially the innuendo, sometimes explicit (tongue between fingers symbolizing what? Yes exactly that) sometimes not so much. Also the main actress is really beautiful, with clothes, without and even as a nun. Do I have to mention that if you are religious you probably don't want to watch this? Though some would argue, that if you like good movies you'd also avoid it ... fair enough