Brigitte
Lahaie in Eurocine's "Most Reprehensible Exploitation Film"

Original
French Title: VIOL, LA GRANDE PEUR [Rape: The Great Fear]
director: Pierre
Chevalier (as Peter Knight)
starring: Monique Gerard · Brigitte Lahaie · Joelle Le
Quement · Lily Brown · Joan N'Guyen · Rita Dunkan

Perhaps
the most reprehensible movie ever released, masquerading under the guise
of 'solution through education,' here is a sleazy semi-mondo film about
a group of reporters trying to give more in-depth coverage to rape cases.
Seemingly, their goal is to rally public awareness for the problem which
- according to on-the-street interviews at the film's start - is considered
surprisingly trivial (e.g., "In my opinion it's just a big
joke," says one young woman). As a result, the audience is presented
with a series of eight different rape enactments of various intensity.
Easily, the standout episode stars Brigitte Lahaie as a medical student
who gets revenge against two truckers after a brutal assault.
This
film was produced by the notorious Eurocine Studios, the production
company that specialized in European exploitation with their stable
of directors like Jess Franco (EXORCISM)
and Andrea Bianchi (MANIAC
KILLER). Most of the female cast members were unknown actresses
- purposely chosen for their anonymity to add realism to the project
- but a couple were well known to the genre. Specifically, Joelle LeQuenent
was a dependable Eurocine starlet best known for various Franco films
including WOMEN
BEHIND BARS and Brigitte Lahaie [certainly the centerrpiece
here as the only victim to dish out revenge]. When this movie was shot,
Brigitte was the most popular actress in French porn. She starred (or
co-starred) in 28 other projects that same year, including NIGHT
FEVER and S.S.
BORDELLO.
Filmmaker
Pierre Chevalier was an old-school film director who made mostly matinee
"B" actioners for 20 years before finding a home with Eurocine
in 1970. He helmed numerous exploitation films under a variety of pseudonyms
(William Russel, Claude Plault, Lina Cavalcanti, Peter Knight) including
the Naziploitation project CONVOY
OF GIRLS. Mr Chevalier died from natural causes at age 89, February
2005.

