Oft touted as the first Pink film from Japan, School of the Holy Beast is the tale of a girl Maya (Yumi Takigawa) whom we meet for the first time sharing a lustful moment with her boyfriend, post coitus she tells him she is off to live in a convent, but no explanation is given. In her new role as a novice nun, she soon learns the hard way, the strict and repressive ways of convent life, laid down by the Mother Superior. Those who disobey the strict tenets are dealt with, with impunity. In time we learn the disturbing history of Maya and the reasons for her being there. As she does her own detective work within the convent, she discovers there, a sinister Holy Man who seems to be pulling the strings of terror. This is a stunningly filmed tale of murder, torture, rape, self flaggelation, lesbians, lustful priests all set in the opulent surroundings of a convent. it's a deliciously decadent and erotic film, that Japanese film historian Risaku Kiridoushi describes as the perfect example of Japanese cinema, I'm not really in agreement though as to where its influences lie, to me they hail from Italy, the score the visuals and the themes all seem to come from there, still though that's not a bad thing.
Review of The Transgressor
