The Beasts (1980)

The Beasts (1980)
aka: Shan kou
Director: Dennis Yu
Writer: Eddie Ling-Ching Fong, Lee Ten
Cast: Eddie Chan, Sing Chen, Kent Cheng
A father seeks from a gang of thugs who raped his daughter and murdered his son.

Director Dennis Yu as made a handful of weird little horror films The Imp and Evil Cat jump to mind, here in the lesser seen The Beasts he tackles the rape revenge sub-genre, basically ripping off I Spit On Your Grave scene for scene bar the fact female rape victim's brother gets killed and she ends up in a mental ward, its left to her father to extort the revenge.

The rape itself is a little tamer than the western rape revenge yarns like the already mentioned Spit or MS45 (that could be down to a cut in the version I caught). The gang of thugs involved in the rape/murder range from really sleazy to downright 3 stooges dumb. The father comes across like a one man on a mission killer along the lines of Charles Bronson in the Death Wish series, he's got a vast set of tricks and traps for the gang ranging from snakes, rope traps and best of all a giant wooden box with nails through it. The reason it most likely has never had a proper international release is due to its use of western music ranging from The Police and Genesis, I bet you'd never have guessed you'd ever hear Phil Collins belt out a song during an Hong Kong exploitation film. Personally I was expecting a little more from the film with all the underground hype its gained, I was the same with Boxer's Omen waited years to see it and it never lived up to my expectations, that said its well worth the hunt and is never boring.

(6½ out of 10)