Le Couvent de la bête sacrée

Norifumi Suzuki's "School of the Holy Beast" is a masterpiece in it's own right. This film about a girls journey into depravity is one of the most erotic films I have ever seen. With each new scene, it gets more beautiful, like an exotic, poisonous flower opening to reveal it's center. Filled with breathtaking color and endless mystery, this is the first film i have seen featuring the amazing actress Yumi Takigawa. She plays her part of Maya with a delicate and subtle perfection rarely seen in this genre of film. Maya is a modern Japanese woman, who enters the "Sacred Heart", a convent shrouded in lies, hypocrisy and sexual power games. It seems as if everyone has something to hide. This film seems to be a direct attack on the Catholic church. The beginning of the film is a bit deceptive, as we are led to believe that there will not be much in the way of a real story here. But when we find out the reason why the beautiful Maya has entered this place, the tension begins to mount. To hear certain people referring to these films as trash, and exploitation, saddens me greatly, as it is so undeserved here. This film is top-notch in every way. The camera work, the editing, the beautiful, dreamlike cinematography, is far superior to anything coming out of Hollywood these days. Sadly, this style of film making is a thing of the past. We are fortunate however, with the advent of DVD technology, that these little-known 1970's masterpieces are again available. One of the classiest, and most elegant Japanese "pink" films ever made. I give this one the highest rating.

Movies involving suppressed sexual desires in a convent erupting into violence/rape/bizarre sexual behaviour (y'now,like THE DEVILS) are usually of European origin.But this cracker from Japan is one of the best of it's kind.It has some of the most disturbing yet hauntingly beautiful scenes of blasphemy i've ever seen.It has been screened in English as CONVENT OF THE SACRED BEAST,but i'm not sure how you'd track it down.But if you can,it's well worth seeing.

You'd be forgiven for thinking a Japanese nunsploit flick helmed by snazzmeister Norifumi Suzuki would be cheap schlock with shower scenes to pad out the running time. No, this is a well made film as much concerned with inverting and subverting religious imagery as it is with aesthetics and sensuality. Certain set-pieces stand out as a testament to that: a nun flagellated in slow motion with roses, rose petals falling all over her bloodied body, a procession of nuns holding candles walking through the convent's corridors, a church interior photographed like a Mario Bava set, a priest falling dead in the shape of an inverted cross, stabbed with one no less.

Although School of the Holy Beast is definitely blasphemous in the imagery it employs and the way those who preach God's word are portrayed (a convent hiding vice and corruption the perfect hiding ground), it's never outrageous enough to shock because everything is done with a sense of artful style that will have all but the most fundamendalist of christians accepting it for what it is. There are a couple of false notes, like the 'witch trial' scene where a nun suspected to be a witch is forcefed salt water then forced to sit upon an image of Christ; if she pees, she's a witch. The method is so medieval that it's hard to picture taking place in the contemporary world the movie is set. Overall the film is enjoyable, mildly violent and sleazy, with perhaps a dash of religious angst that comes out as juvenile, but in good taste and a worthwhile watch.

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.

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.