The first scene on the beach with the young girls rape and attack is very good and the next one in the bar with them appearing as ghosts too... Unfortunately the movie doesn't go on like that all the time. There are good and bad moments but the scenes of nudity with Joelle Coeur are erotically very good. The story of the demon in the ruins doesn't appear very clear, nor does the clown's and the ruin's keeper destinies... But all in all there is a good atmosphere even if some scenes are a bit too long and some of them are great, like the one where the religious statues fall one after each other on the ground. Jean Rollin knows how to mix sex and horror, as well as many other authors of that 70's era. A good moment but that movie could have been better again...

Four pirates(..labeled "wreckers" for they draw ships with light crashing into the shore to pillage them)ruthlessly rape and assault two blond young women as they walk to shore, appearing from the darkness in nothing but gowns. Soon the Captain(John Rico), already insane, is haunted by ghostly apparitions of those two girls they left for dead on the shore. Yet, somehow, the girls survive fending off yet another proposed attack by the pirates, making their way to the "haunted ruins" which holds a demonic presence, imprisoned by two guardians who can give them the power they seek in weakness needed for revenge.

I really enjoyed this one, even if I was often left with my jaw open wondering what the hell was going on. I couldn't help but snicker when the twins make to the haunted ruins and are greeted by the female clown. Many would probably throw their hands up at that, but I couldn't help but love such an audacious move by Rollin to throw a modern image inside a film representing pirates. I loved the brothel pub hybrid with patrons fondling the gals as our clairvoyant Madam plays the piano when she isn't foretelling doom. I like how over-the-top the pirates are, even Tina(..let me stop for a moment and gain my composure)who Rollin films in nearly every scene naked, delighting in her devilish ways. Take, for instance, the Captain who lifts his mug to drink with beer spilling out all over himself, or Bosco(Willy Braque), always morose until he begins to trash the fisherman's bar and brothel.The film is Joelle Coeur for me. There's one image I'll always have to summon every now and then. Rollin's camera eyeballs a naked Coeur with her arms stretched to the heavens after their conquest and corruption of the innocence of two girls who had just lost everything. The camera slowly pulls away as she stands, enjoying every minute of the atrocities committed. How Coeur can't help herself as her men ravage their bodies, tearing their already shredded gowns, in a state of ecstasy. She craves this type of cruel activity, embellishes the evil they partake in. The wrecking is child's play compared to the rape and destruction of innocence.

I liked how Rollin gets his skeleton and bat in the film, by using them as "decoration" in the brothel-pub. Oh, and I loved that winged creature statue in the brothel-pub as well(..I believe Rollin shoots one of the girl's apparitions next to it when they haunt the Captain).The ruins left me in a state of bliss, particularly how Rollin shoots the female clown guiding the girls to the "crypt-watcher"(..he looks like a Russian czar, or something)down those massive steps. And, when the girls remove their shirts making their way to the prisoner's cell to release him.. One of my favorite techniques established by Rollin is how he follows his female beauties, either naked or clothed under a gown or shirt(..just long enough to cover their crotch), holding a candle to guide themselves, as they make their way to a specific destination.I also liked how the final sequence ends with water engulfing the main characters. Oh, and my favorite scene, besides the bedroom sequence where the Captain is fondling a bird he'd later rip into as Coeur slowly gets naked, is a certain character's death as a piano plays on it's own.

After being raped and left for dead, a pair of women suddenly starts to invade the lives of the pirate gang that originally killed them after finding themselves imbued with supernatural powers and set out to take revenge on the gang for what happened to them using those powers.

This one wasn't all that bad of an art-house-style horror film. As is to be expected given the film's style, a lot of the film's positives reside on the showcasing of it's frequent and oftentimes excessive nudity. From the very beginning, featuring the beach rape of the girls as they're tormented by the gang features plenty of such titillating fare as the girls are captured, stripped, raped and disposed of while the fact that a vast majority of the revenge scenes are handled with the idea of the girls seducing the group one-by-one and then killed them off, give this one a lot of such material throughout the film. Moreover, there are all the inserts of nameless prostitutes and village girls getting fondled and played with alongside the finale of the female leader pleasuring herself to the girls being raped once again in incredibly wild, vivid fashion brings that up a lot as well, and with the general atmosphere found here really gives this one a pretty sleazy feel. As well, the fact that there's plenty of rather interesting choices throughout here because of this showcase gives this a kind of artistic sensibility that comes across far more dynamic than expected. Since the opening shots of the groups' rape and attack of the girls is done almost entirely devoid of dialogue makes for a rather startling and striking opening lasting nearly fifteen minutes before anyone really speaks a word, and the entirety of scenes that go by filled with silence or a more artistic representation really makes this one feel like a much more ambitious film than just straightforward exploitation like the way it's presented here. Even the action scenes, from the all-girls brawl on he ship to the escape from the underground jail are handled more like an art-house film than a traditional horror film and really manage to showcase extraordinary skills here. While these here all manage to make for an enjoyable time throughout here, the film does offer up a huge nagging issue that derails it somewhat slightly in that it never really goes for the horror at times. Not just due to the film's art-house look and feel, but the films' reliance on poetic atmosphere and the group going insane from their belief in what's going on makes this rather shock-less for nearly all of it's run-time despite the general plot line supporting such a potential outcome. The softcore groping and sex scenes don't help matters, but because the revenge finally comes in the last third of the film it rarely feels like much of genre effort and really stands out as the major drawback to this one.

Rated Unrated/NC-17: Continuous Full Nudity, strong sex scenes, Language, Mild Violence and several rape scenes.