Director Gabriele Albanesi has got the ‘70s Italian exploitation film dialed in. From camera angles, to tempo, to mood, Albanesi knows of what he speaks, as evidenced in his nostalgic homage to Italian horror, THE LAST HOUSE IN THE WOODS, a DVD release under Sam Raimi’s Ghost House Underground label. Rino and Aurora are two ex-lovers who aren’t quite over each other, so they take a drive down a forest road and park for some vehicular intercourse. Enter the trio of rowdy thugs, careening through the woods all jacked up on PILLS! VIRGINS! and BUTTERFLY KNIVES!, and screaming every line of dialogue like they’re stuck behind enemy lines.

The thugs encounter the roadside lovers, beat the holy fuck out of Rino and accost Aurora, demanding she deliver a blow-job at knife point, but the assault is thwarted by another couple who happen to drive by. A middle-aged man packing heat climbs from the driver’s seat, and the thugs flee at the sight of his pistol. Obviously shaken and disturbed, Rino and Aurora are invited back to the couple’s home, to recover and recuperate. It may be worth mentioning that the couple’s house is…..the last house in the woods.

Would-be-rapist thugs, a mysterious couple and a secluded house in the woods…it certainly sounds familiar. But LAST HOUSE also manages to shoehorn a creepy pointy-toothed cannibal kid and a couple of killer hillbilly retards into its plot, making for a perversely entertaining—if occasionally overstuffed—ode to gratuitous Italian exploitation. The direction is spot-on, full of smoldering close-ups, reactionary zooms, and punchy editing. It’s also an awfully dark movie with some scenes bathed in a vague blackness, but Albanesi manages to work the chiaroscuro angle to his advantage in a few brilliantly shot segments. The movie starts slow but gets cranking during a final 30 minutes ripe with some sloppy and effective make-up effects (my favorite of which involved one hillbilly’s protrusive neck goiter), and the movie seems to enjoy itself most when it’s being truly outrageous. Highly recommended for fans of American and Italian exploitation films, LAST HOUSE IN THE WOODS is a horror homage that really delivers the goods.