ON THE LIST: Anthropophagus The Beast (1980)

Boy, I had high hopes for this one. One of the most infamous Video Nasties, reviled worldwide for its 'foetus eating' scene, Anthropophagus The Beast really failed to deliver for me. Its cover-, and main star, George Eastman as cannibalistic serial killer Nikos, is quite terrifying. A sinister looking fellow with menacing eyes, towering at an incredible 6ft9", Eastman as himself is pretty scary. Add monstrous make up effects and he is terrifying. As it happens, Eastman was a frequent collaborator with veteran horror director Joe D'Amato, and co-wrote Anthropophagus. He's an amazing villain, but the story and set-up is slow and boring.

It pains me to say this. I am aware of director D'Amato's stellar cult horror status, and Anthropophagus has a lot of what it needs to be good, but it's just so goddamn boring. Set on a beautiful Greek island, which is creepily deserted, the movie gives us a bunch of friends who go to stay in one of the many lovely houses. Among their entourage is a heavily pregnant woman and a nutty new age woman who prattles on about how the Tarot cards say they shouldn't be there, and that they're going to die there, etc. The others aren't very memorable. 

They see some creepy figure skulking around the place and leaving messages on dusty windows, and they are, of course, undeterred by her obviously ghostly presence. They chase after her, certain she is a real person, inexplicably running from them on a mysteriously deserted island. Nothing up with that. They find a mutilated body, and then they run back to their boat, which is adrift, so they leave the pregnant woman out there by herself and sleep in the house.

In the house, they come across a blind woman, who is equally as crazy as the tarot woman, raving about the smell of blood and the like. Then Nikos (who I can't really help but refer to as Anthropophagus - isn't he the titular character anyhow?) shockingly appears behind the door. Wow, this guy kicks it old school. He was hiding behind the door. Still, he's very scary looking. From here, all hell breaks loose with the towering fiend taking out the boring bunch left, right and centre. I am writing this a few weeks after watching, but even this recently, much of the movie is lost on me. 

I admit, after an hour or so, I found myself just waiting for the foetus scene, as I had conceded that nothing else was going to be anywhere near as entertaining or shocking. I wasn't really wrong. This scene comes right at the very end of the movie, and it has unsurprisingly been rather jumped up by hearsay. It was pretty brutal, and visible enough to require the infamous skinned rabbit as a prop. But another real problem I have is that the characters don't seem to find their plight anywhere near as dreadful as we do as an audience. As the pregnant woman and whichever bloke is with her are cornered in a cave, with Nikos approaching them, they speak calmly, and seem surprised at the most. While the woman is having the skinned rabbit pulled from her innards, she just sort of moans in a high pitch. I don't think it even takes a woman to know that this ordeal would more likely result in ear-splitting screams of agony. 

Everything is very amateur and the acting is terrible. There are two--OK, three things that make this movie in any way memorable to me. 1) The foetus scene: D'Amato and Eastman came up with one gross gem, and it feels like they wrote the rest of the movie to accommodate it. 2) Shortly afterwards, the rest of the friends are at some mansion, and one of the women gets tripped into a noose, which sends her hurtling over a thirty-foot banister. That was pretty crazy. 3) Ladies and Gentlemen, Mr George Eastman. He is the star, the bearer, the objective of the movie, and it's a shame that the lagging plot development only leaves us with about 20 minutes of him. 

The closing minutes see the female remainder being pulled down and then chased back up a well by Nikos, in a sequence that is pretty close to being scary, but for the fact it seems to play out in slow-mo. With an unexciting Moog synth soundtrack and minutes of ridiculously slow grabbing, moaning and reaching, all tension is gone. And again, the female on the receiving end of this snail-paced terror addresses it with considerable nonchalance. The entire movie is played out far too casually, with the characters not seeming to recognise the situation they are in. But then where would we be in the horror world without award-winningly idiotic characters?

I wanted to like Anthropophagus, and when I researched it, and the backgrounds of its makers, D'Amato and Eastman in particular, I really wanted to like it. Alas, I really did not. Perhaps I'll have more luck with one of their alternative co-productions. Porno Holocaust, maybe.

Last House On The Left (1972)

This movie, in some weird way, changed my life. It overtook The Exorcist, Carrie and The Wicker Man as my favourite horror movie ever, and that's one tough call. They are all utter works of genius. But when I first watched Wes Craven's directorial debut Last House On The Left, I saw something like I'd never seen before. Because of my sheer admiration for this film and its merits, I will issue a **SPOILER ALERT** right here.

Where to start with a movie I know inside out and back to front, from conception to aftermath? I suppose 1300s Sweden, in which a folk tale emerged, of a young girl who is raped and murdered in the woods by a gang of men, who then seek shelter at her parents' house. The parents realise who they are and what they have done, and kill them in revenge. But they also build a church to repent. This was the basis for Ingmar Bergman's Oscar Winning The Virgin Spring. And this was the basis for Last House On The Left.

In Craven's movie, we have beautiful young Mari Collingwood (Sandra Cassell), the daughter of a doctor celebrating her 17th birthday by going to the big city for a Bloodlust concert with her 'funky' friend Phyllis Stone (Lucy Grantham). An amusing opening scene introduces us to Mari, telling her parents about her plans for the night, and their reactions to her 'wild' ways. When Mari's father notices she's wearing no bra under her shirt, she giggles, 'Course not, nobody wears those things anymore!' Ahh, the good old days...Outraged by her bra-less cavorting, and her use of the word 'tits', old Doc Collingwood says, 'Tits?! What's this "tits" business? Sounds like I'm back in the barracks!' 




Mari and Phyllis, who is an iron and steel heiress ('My mother irons and my father steals!'), hit the town, looking for someone to buy some reefer from, and come across shaggy young Junior (Marc Sheffler), who they rather stupidly follow up to his apartment for an ounce o' the good stuff. However, through the earlier use of a local radio report, we have already been introduced to the crooks who lurk in said apartment: escaped convicted 'murderers, rapists and dope-pushers' Krug Stillo (David Hess) and Weasel Podowski (Fred Lincoln), and their cattish girlfriend Sadie (Jeramie Rain), who has demanded 'a couple more chicks' for 'equal representation'.

So the gang kidnap the girls, and next morning on their way out of town, break down right outside Mari's house, which is in the middle of the woods. So the gang drag the girls out into the forest for 'a little fun', and what follows is surely the most intense and affecting scene in the whole production. In a wicked game of Simon Says, the gang inflicts awful humiliation on the girls at knifepoint. With a move Craven used to indicate the beginning of a real emotionless horrorshow, Krug forces Phyllis to wet herself. Yes - shit just got real. Even nowadays, this is not your typical torture material, but the utter humiliation of it is probably all the more painful. In a feeble attempt to put a stop to the ordeal, a cluckin' Junior (who his own father hooked on heroin to control him) suggests that they instead force the girls to 'make it with each other'.

Warning: imminently ensuing is the most painful and memorable shot of the movie. Phyllis, worriedly trying to reassure her friend, pulls down Mari's underwear, while Krug leers over them, and Mari sobs uncontrollably, begging 'I can't, I can't'. Sandra Cassell, in her only post-LH interview with David Szulkin, maintained that much of the shoot was upsetting for her, and that David Hess was very frightening. This seems somewhat believable, for there is an incredible realism to her performance during these scenes. Many have drawn allusions to the death of Flower Power and the innocence of an era from this movie, and those were some of Craven's many lingering motivations in its making. This single shot of poor Mari, having her innocence quite literally stripped from her, as she helplessly begs for mercy, is utterly symbolic of the early '70s social and political upheaval.

But I digress, the girls are forced to 'make it', before Phyllis makes a run for it, distracting Sadie and Weasel. Mari meanwhile begs Junior to let her go, insisting her father can give him methadone, and gives him the peace-symbol necklace her father gave her earlier. It almost looks like the girls will make it. But Krug frightfully reappears each time (that was still a new and terrifying trick back then!), and Phyllis is disembowelled, then Mari is raped. This is another pivotal scene. Although reviled in its time, it does not linger, and it is not particularly violent. But Cassell's wild screams, and Hess' ingenious addition of drooling on his victim's cheek, give the final act of degradation its raw and disturbing effect.

Mari gets up and staggers away, as a haunting blues number 'Now You're All Alone' swells on the soundtrack. She vomits and prays, and then we look at Krug, Weasel and Sadie. Together, then individually, then together. They are silent, dumbfounded...remorseful? They stare blankly, alert suddenly to their actions, and the meaninglessness of it all. But they must finish what they started, and so as Mari wanders, in a trance, into the river, they dismally follow, and Krug shoots her. The suggestion of remorse follows on, as the gang submerge themselves in the river to wash the blood away, and put on new clothes.


The now very worried Doc and Mrs Collingwood are suddenly subjected to guests, as the gang roll up in their new clothes, seeking help with their busted car. At first unsuspecting, the Collingwoods cook dinner for them. '70s hospitality, lost but never forgotten. Later, his old man having deprived him of his fix, Junior is wretching his guts up in the bathroom, and Mrs Collingwood finds him, with Mari's necklace on. With the additional discovery of bloody clothes in their suitcase, she puts the pieces together, and the parents race down to the lake where they find Mari, and realise what has happened.

Back at the house, the crooks are asleep, and Doc starts laying traps throughout the house which incorporate shaving foam, trip wires, water and electricity. Meanwhile, Weasel wakes up from a brilliantly horrifying nightmare, and finds Mrs Collingwood downstairs. Thinking on her feet, she encourages his advances, and leads him outside. The lothario foolishly promises he can 'make love to a looker like you with my hands tied behind my back.' Famous last words. Mrs Collingwood really takes one for the team, and mid-fellatio bites Weasel's cock clean off. Oh yeeeaaah.

Unsurprisingly awoken by the former sexual predator's screams, Krug falls into Doc's various traps, before meeting him downstairs, where he is equipped with a chainsaw. And this was the year before Tobe Hooper did it. The fellas get into one hell of a scuffle, destroying all sorts of wooden living room furniture, when Junior reappears, hell bent on shooting Krug dead. But, the loving father that he is, Krug rages at Junior to 'take the gun, put it to your head and BLOW YOUR BRAINS OUT!' and the despairing youth finally obeys. Meanwhile, Sadie has made a run for it, and gets into the ultimate catfight with Mrs Collingwood, before taking a running jump into a surprise swimming pool. A swift razor to the neck for Sadie, and a far more jagged chainsaw for Krug, and the gang is history.

Now, as incidental threads throughout the movie, I must mention two other elements: the soundtrack, and the cops. David Hess was not only an incredibly gifted actor, creating one of the most menacing and unforgettable villains in cinema history, but his main occupation was songwriting. He wrote the entire soundtrack to Last House, and sang its vocals. The movie's 'theme song', repeated several times throughout, is a simple but haunting verse: 'And the road leads to nowhere / And the castle stays the same / And the father tells the mother / Wait for the rain.' 

During cut scenes of the Collingwoods setting up Mari's birthday party and baking her cake, a funky, upbeat piano and percussion number plays. During the scenes of molestation in the woods, an acoustic reprise of 'Now You're All Alone' strums softly, like a lullaby. The chase of Phyllis through the woods is a tense yet adventurous twangy guitar piece. Then, perhaps most memorably, is the Bonnie and Clyde style 'Baddies Theme', a banjo and piano song with amusing narrative lyrics. Behold:

 'Weasel and Junior, Sadie and Krug / Out for the day with the Collingwood broo-ood / Out for the day for some fresh air and sun / Let's have some fun with those two lovely children and off 'em as soon as we're dooo-ooone.' It gets better... 'Weasel and Sadie, Junkie and Dad / A quartet in harmony, barbershop baaa-aad / Cuttin' and stylin' to size and to shape / Krugsie ya know that this foolin' around isn't gettin' us outta the staaa-aaaate!' One more... 'Collingwood Manor is just out of reach / Phyllis is suckin' up sun on the beach / Mari and Junior are stuck in the rain / The local police force is lookin' for someone to get their car started agaaaa-aaaaiin!'

I hope you could guess that each word like 'dooo-ooone' is sang by sliding down and then up in pitch. It's an amazing song. Hess' music, generally, serves as a counterpoint to what is onscreen. To soften the blow of the violence and molestation, the gentle lullaby and the funky piano tune. Hess was a very professional musician, and he understood exactly what a medium a soundtrack could be to a movie, and he used it to its fullest potential. 

But I suppose the final verse of 'Baddies Theme' is leaving you wondering about the cops. Well, in the same vein of 'softening the blow', Craven wrote in two dumb-ass cops, Sheriff (Marshall Anker) and Deputy (Martin Kove, of later Sensei Kreese in Karate Kid fame), who the Collingwoods call when Mari doesn't come home. They see Krug's broken down car,  but decide not to pursue it: 'That ain't gonna find us Mari Collingwood!' Then a police notice identifies the car they saw as that of escaped convicts, and so Sheriff and Deputy rush off to save the day. Unfortunately, the car runs outta gas a couple of miles down the road, and this is a small-town department in 1972. No radios, no phones, no back up. So they gotta walk, or try and hitch a ride. So who would be so kind? That car full of long-haired hippies? 'Naaaah! We hate cops!' they yell, cruisin' by. How about old Ada with her chicken truck? No such luck. 'I couldn't get another chicken on here without it stallin', and now you two's on here, and you ain't chickens!' Better luck next time, fellas. 


You may see why many thought the cops a questionable addition. This very definitely does not sound like material from one of the most controversial horrors of all time. Craven himself admits he would have omitted them had he made the movie again. But they serve their purpose, as comic relief in its most literal form. The audience needed, the crew decided, to have brief periods of relief between the scenes of horror, and so the cops and the soundtrack worked together - very successfully, in my opinion - to provide this.

Every element has been scrutinised and debated heavily over the years, and the individual components, as well as the movie as a whole, continue to divide opinions. I gave my sister, a fellow horror connoisseur, the DVD for Christmas, and we watched it with our brother and his wife, both Film graduates. They liked it, but thought it was weird. 'The weirdest soundtrack to a movie I've ever heard' my brother said. I happen to have the soundtrack on my playlists, and 'Baddies Theme' as my ring tone. Oh yeeeaaahh.

Anyone can agree, the makers being perfectly willing, that the movie is a very amateur production, made by a bunch of young hippies with no experience, a drip-fed investment and a 'fuck you, society' attitude. The crippling time and money restraints don't really show, or more don't need to, as the cheap, handheld technique with which the movie's made adds to its brimming realism, in a documentary style. 


Wes Craven wrote the original screenplay in a few days, as a semi-pornographic exploitation picture, with far more disturbing and macabre displays on the Baddies' part than those which survive in modern prints. The early script made a colleague exclaim, 'My God, a guy with a Masters' degree in Philosophy wrote this?!' The cast members who gradually signed on were promised that things would be changed, and subsequently, much of the dialogue was improvised. If you think about such things when watching a movie, this is probably noticeable, to a strongly realistic effect. I find the wit written into it very amusing. For instance, Sadie has a very funny speech about how Sigmund 'Frood' caused the sex crime of the century, because now everything is actually 'a giant puh-haylus'. The earlier mentioned 'tits business' and cop scenes are other examples. 

While the roles of the parents feel rather like they could have been played by anybody, every other character is played with brilliance. While some, like Method student David Hess, thought very seriously and extensively about their characters, others like Lucy Grantham and Jeramie Rain took a less guided approach. However, each one seems effortless and natural, and I love that you can never confuse characters. Too often in movies, we are bombarded with several similar looking and sounding characters who we struggle to distinguish. Last House has only the necessities present, and they are each very distinguished. 

David Hess is amazing, menacing and siiiinnnfully handsome, and this movie made him the go-to guy for Menacing Rapist/Murderer, just as Hugh Grant became the go-to guy for Bumbling Foul-Mouthed Posh Twat. Fred Lincoln is funny, scary and totally slimy as the chewin' cacklin' Weasel. Fred went on to a very successful career in porn directing and acting. Jeramie Rain has great attitude and charisma, and made two other movies before marrying Richard Dreyfuss. Marc Sheffler went on to directing and writing, quite prolifically, and was close friends with Hess until his death. Sandra Cassell caused much debate, with a few mysterious internet presences insisting LH was her only film, in the face of very obvious physical evidence in the form of...well, Sandra Cassell in other movies, and pretty kinky ones at that (see Voices of Desire and Teenage Hitchhikers). Some argue there was actual porn too, but that's believed to be a mix-up. However, she now teaches acting. Lucy Grantham made another film with Fred Lincoln and Harry Reems, as well as some boner-fide porn loops! But word has it she was heiress to Hersheys and that she eventually got a PhD.

Last House On The Left is really unlike anything else, despite the many later movies in a similar genre which tried to milk their predecessor's fame, such as Night Train Murders, Horrible House on the Hill and Last House on Dead End Street. It seems that they just struck lucky, right place, right time, with all the right people. With a complete cast and crew totalling a mere 26, it's a real case of quality over quantity. Its time relativity is perhaps what makes it roll off the backs of younger generations (though I'm only 22 as I write this). The aforementioned '70s hospitality is a long gone thing, and so some can't imagine a world where you wouldn't think it dangerous to go to a stranger's apartment, or allow them to stay in your home. 




The other thing is perhaps that it just isn't so violent as films inevitably have become. Last House was top of its game, disgusting-wise, with pretty much all but the mighty Ebert slating it as sickening trash. Ebert was one who recognised its aims and artistic merits, however simple. But take, for example, the obvious remake but totally not a remake by David DeFalco, Chaos (2005), which saw its first victim force fed her own nipple, before being repeatedly stabbed and her dying body being raped by two different men, and its second victim's two orifices being butchered into one. This comparison emphasises just how low-key Last House is by modern standards. 

However, its effortless realism is terrifying and heart-breaking, where later versions of the movie felt like a movie, or what a movie is expected to be now. Cardboard words that real people don't say, neatly-framed shots, endless protests of 'you sick motherfucker' towards the aggressors, rather than the far more likely hysterical begging and crying. Movies are seldom made with this degree of realism in mind. It is funny how an endless forest can seem like an inescapable fourth wall, and put us directly into the scene, but without the means of running. 

The List of Video Nasties was mostly bombarded with under-the-radar pictures with no real structure, talent, craft, or even plot, but plenty of too-bright-red blood and a lot of "tits business"!


The better-known gracers of the list were mostly never actually on the list, such as Texas Chainsaw Massacre and A Clockwork Orange, and having now seen approximately half of the listed pictures, I confidently declare that Last House On The Left is the best, most influential and important title on there.

Island of Death (1977)

(Note: Originally published at Bad Movies Marathon)

Here comes the first Video Nasty in the Bad Movies Marathon, Island of Death. What is remarkable is that its own creator, Nico Mastorakis, confesses that it was no exercise in decent film making. Having observed the commercial success of Tobe Hooper's spectacular Texas Chainsaw Massacre, Mastorakis decided to make an even more depraved, violent movie to make money, and penned the piece of crap in a week.
Depraved it is, especially in light of the finale's revelation about the 'protagonist' couple. Violent, I guess it is too. By '70s standards, anyhow. Gratuitous and inexplicable, the violence most definitely is, which I guess is what makes it so defined as an Exploitation flick. Oh, that and the actors being pretty much always naked.                                                                  
                                                                               

Supposed newlyweds Christopher (Robert Belling) and Celia (Jane Ryall) arrive on a Greek island, doing everything newlyweds do, except in a remarkably public fashion. The scene in which the couple fornicate in a phone box, while on the line to Christopher's mother is awkward enough, but when the aforementioned revelation in the closing minutes hits, everything you have just seen is all the more abominable. In a mind-bending set of contradictions, the couple are Christian fanatics, intent on ridding the world of evil. So, with this wholesome goal in mind, they set about screwing and murdering everybody on the island, in that order. And don't think that they only do humans. One morning, young Christopher's advances are rejected by a sleeping Celia. His solution: an act which spawned the following conversation on IMDb, which is pure comedy gold.

           - The goat was clearly underage, too...that's just sick.
             
                    - Yeah, it did seem like it was still a KID

Exploitation Films tend to attach themselves to one sub-genre, which have some interesting names, such as 'blaxploitation,' 'nunsploitation,' and my personal favourite, 'hixploitation.' Island of Death, however, contains every dirty trick in the book. Torture, rape, murder, homosexuality, orgies, incest, bestiality, homophobia, racism...all wrapped into one trashy little package. And all apparently in the name of Jesus Christ. The main actors, particularly Jane Ryall, are naked so frequently, and only dress in between so we are shocked when they again undress. I guess it works; after the tenth or twelfth nude scene from Ryall, upon getting publicly naked once more, I started to sigh, "Oh, come on, seriously?" It's so regular it becomes tedious, and it is never in the least bit erotic. Very softcore porn, perhaps, but never erotic.

So, there we have all the technical criteria for an Exploitation movie ticked, let's fill in the gaps in terms of production. Filmed in Greece, by Greek film makers, with very little money, and even less talent. The characters behind the actors are questionable. Neither can act, and both had brief careers in Exploitation pictures, before either disappearing off the face of the Earth (Ryall) or committing suicide after years of seclusion (Belling). IMDb discussors make an interesting assessment about Ryall, noting that her brief stint in Anglo-Greek movies may suggest she was the girlfriend of some Greek film maker, and when they separated her stint in cinema was over. This sounds very probable to me. It's such a shame there's little to no trace of many Exploitation actors, it would make one hell of a documentary talking to them.

In a style reminiscent of Wes Craven's Last House on the Left, the visual horror is accompanied by a ridiculously funky folk soundtrack, which, contrary to the effect Craven achieved, pushes the audience over the edge of tolerance, and makes it all laughable. Mastorakis said himself that he just wanted to make money from this movie, but unfortunately I doubt he even did that. It sank into the more obscure ranks of the 72 Video Nasties, which is the only motivation for my viewing it, but apparently warranted a DVD release by Mastorakis, so maybe he did make his millions after all. I wonder if Jane Ryall, wherever she is now, is still receiving royalties for her two hours of softcore infamy.

Chaos (2005)

One of my all-time favourite horror movies is Wes Craven's film-making debut, Last House on the Left (1972); a film which captured, at just the right time in the political and social development of the US, a shocking and controversial story as a response to many misconceptions and cover-ups. Craven and producer Sean Cunningham were among many young hippies of their generation to feel outraged and lied to when footage of the Vietnam war came home, and the men decided that the sickly violence inflicted overseas was just as relevant in US society. It was clearly within the human capacity to commit torturous acts on our own kind, and it was there. The Man just didn't want you to think it was.

But alongside their own peace-fuelled angst came the basic morals and structure of an old Swedish folk tale, originally adapted to film by Ingmar Bergman in the Academy Award winning The Virgin Spring (1960). This went on to become story of Mari Collingwood (Sandra Cassell) and her friend Phyllis Stone (Lucy Grantham), two teenage girls of 'the love generation,' who are off to a Bloodlust concert in the City. In the remote Connecticut woodland live Doctor and Mrs Collingwood, who are busy preparing Mari's 17th birthday at home while the girls are out.
Through the brilliantly-used medium of a local radio station, we are introduced to the movie's antagonists. Krug Stillo (David Hess) and Weasel Pedowski (Fred Lincoln) - two escaped convicted murderers and rapists - and their companions Sadie (Jeramie Rain) and Krug's son Junior (Marc Sheffler). The girls run into the gang whilst trying to buy some grass and are kidnapped, taken to the woods, raped and murdered. By pure coincidence, the woods they are in - their car having broken down on the road - are the back garden of the Collingwood place, and the gang spend the night after their day of havoc, before the parents discover who they are and what they've done. Then the parents kill them all in miserable revenge.
In 2005, David DeFalco wrote Chaos, originally with Krug himself David Hess attached for the title role. Alas, the potential saviour of this sickening flick was let go, for fear of type casting. However, Marc Sheffler (Junior) signed on as co-producer for good measure. What this picture turns out to be is an almost scene-for-scene remake of Last House, but with the violence skyrocketed, the craft neglected, and the ending absolutely brutalised.

The two girls we have this time are Angelica (Maya Barovich) and Emily (Chantal Degroat) who is mixed-race. The only reason I mention this otherwise irrelevant point is because it is pressed so frequently throughout this outrageous film. In the opening minutes, Angelica (who, we gather has been Emily's friend long enough for her mother to worry about her party animal tendencies) says that Emily's mother should be more liberal, because she's in a mixed-race marriage. Why the hell would a long-term friend bring up their friend's race without any point or purpose? That's just stupid. To be continued...

Anyway, the girls are off to a rave in the woods, and the family at home in the wilderness are Mr Ross (Jewish doctor of some kind, we assume) and Mrs Ross (typical worried African-American sitcom housewife). Yeah, it already sounds terrible, doesn't it? So the girls head off into the woods, where people are still setting up. Angelica, in her irritating 'broken record' manner shouts loudly and obnoxiously about 'scoring some E' and soon her obviously dwindling common sense gets them friendly with our new Junior, Swan (Sage Stallone). He takes them back to a secluded and dilapidated cabin where his pop Chaos (Kevin Gage), sidekick Frankie (Stephen Wozniak) who looks like he may be Jared Leto under a false name, and their eye-candy Daisy (Kelley Quann) are hiding out. Wow, Daisy--Sadie...see what they did there?!

This gang has none of the swagger or chemistry that Weasel, Sadie and Krug had. Chaos, who's a towering skinhead always shot from below to appear terrifyingly large, is soon revealed to be an absolutely (for want of a less-horror-cliché term) twisted fuck. Daisy, whose hair was styled just like Jeramie Rain's, but whose appearance is lacking in the original felinity, is a questionable character. Throughout she expresses remorse, fear and disgust, yet when the gang inevitably torture the girls, she screams, hollers and molests with considerable conviction. She's well acted, but under-developed. Frankie, the aforementioned Leto in disguise, is similarly questionable. He constantly disagrees with Chaos, and although he claims 'We do it because we like it!' is later equally disgusted by Chaos' rampage. It's like his mantra is 'Rape and torture is fun and harmless, but there's a line, man, don't cross it.' 

So, the gang have taken the girls to the woods, for some reason. 'Nobody'll bother us way out here.' Yeah, dude, but nobody would've bothered you in that perfectly good hovel in the middle of nowhere either. Why the woods? Anyhow, it is suggested it would've been a good, old-fashioned rape and murder spree until Chaos came in and added his ridiculously vile torture that is obviously designed purely to sicken us. Do we really need one girl force-fed her own nipple before being stabbed and her dying body raped by two different men? Do we really need the other girl's two orifices being carved into one? No we fucking don't. 

Craven's movie was distinctly lacking in any really 'original' killing methods. Phyllis was stabbed, Mari was shot and both were raped. The content of the violence was not the point of the movie, the context was. But Chaos is not so subtle. The only real object here is to make the audience vomit til their stomach linings hang from their mouths. This is truly gross shit. 

Anyhow, the girls done away with, we are given Last House-style cuts back to the parents at home. The original used this as a mild form of comic relief, with jaunty music and lack of worry. It was used as a contrast. But the constant cuts back to the parents here are increasingly annoying and pointless, just going round in circles, conversation-wise. The mother character is irritatingly pitiful, but the dad is strongly played, particularly towards the end. But again, the original story's pivotal third act is barstardised, made totally pointless and fruitless. 

The gang finally arrive at the parents house, for whatever reason, a mere ten minutes from the end, and there is no development between them, or trickery. As soon as they set foot in the house, the dad realises what's happened because Daisy's wearing her victim's belt. He manages to get a call out to the cops-- wait, wait, I'm getting ahead of myself. I must mention the cops. Earlier the worried parents called the local sheriff, who is again ridiculously and pointlessly racist. Taking Emily's picture with him he comments, 'Would you believe one of her parents is white?!' I reiterate-- WHAT?! The mom goes into typical housewife outrage, while in the car the sheriff rambles on to his deputy about 'All that perfectly good white pussy out there and he goes and marries a nignog.' What a crazy fucking asshole. There is no point to any of this shambolic conversation, except if it is to emphasise the fascist attitudes of all the male characters, bar Pop. 

The original 1972 cops were a wicked delight, again used as comic relief. They see the gang's car broken down outside the Collingwood place, but choose not to pursue it. Soon after they realise the car belonged to their wanted felons, their sudden chase is stalled as their car runs out of gas. They spend the remainder of the movie walking and trying to hitch various hilarious rides back to the Collingwoods'. These here cops are not only backwards pricks, they are also mindless idiots, as the show's jaw-droppingly ridiculous, and point-defeating anti-climax proves.

Five mins to run: The cops have arrived, and are busy wrestling with the hysterical Mrs Ross, while Doc Ross has Chaos, Daisy and Frankie at gunpoint (oh by the way, the son is dead. I forgot about that. He dies). Anyhow, after wasting his first chance to blow them away by chatting shit, Dad's gun is snatched away by Chaos, who shoots and kills Daisy. While this happens, Doc runs off and grabs a chainsaw (wink to the original) and guts Frankie like a leather-clad fish. He wastes the remaining fuel, and his second attempt to blow them away, by sawing through various wooden objects. A struggle between Doc and Chaos sees the latter with a screwdriver to the leg, and Doc reloads the gun, aiming it at his aggressor's head. Here it goes, third chance, that was lucky, better not screw it up... In runs the sheriff, who immediately SHOOTS DOC ROSS IN THE HEAD in his own fucking living room!!!! Mrs Ross runs in and sees her dead husband, and grabs the sheriff's gun and shoots him dead with it. By now Chaos has grabbed the gun again and shoots the deputy, and then the mom. Everyone's dead except Chaos, and his cruel laughter runs over a black screen. End of movie.

What the fuck did I just see? In the words of Ron Burgundy, "Well, that escalated quickly." One of Craven and Cunningham's key points of their movie was showing how ordinary, good people can become killers, the same as those scum we don't believe live in our neighbourhoods. What did it take for that to happen? And would it give any satisfaction, or did it just have to be done? Well it wasn't done in Chaos, that's the problem. So now not only the ending, but the entire story is obsolete. The parents were meant to be central characters, victims who become aggressors. But they weren't; they were victims like everyone else, turning this movie into one long, mindless killfest by a single sick bastard, and in the end, he is better off. What does this mean? 

In 1972, every member of the gang was dead, and the parents left in confused misery at what has happened. But the gang was dead, so revenge had been dealt. Evil had been punished. That is, one way or another, a satisfactory conclusion. But here evil is not punished, it is fed and it prevails. The beginning of the movie features a particularly long-winded 'true events' bullshit title card, which claims the movie should 'serve as a warning to parents and potential victims...and perhaps save lives.' So what is this movie's warning? That sick, evil people will always win? Or that evil is everywhere so parents should lock their daughters in the attic for life? What was DeFalco doing? There is no clear message or moral to this movie. It's just a torture album.

All of this turf was already covered by the mighty Ebert, but it's true and obvious. Not only lacking constant attitude or perspective, it's craft is minimal. Last House featured some good, while certainly amateur, cinematography, and an amazing score by none other than David Hess. The music, Hess' main passion, was meaningful, lyrical and beautiful, and made a few scenes eerily sensual. Music in Chaos is negligible, and when it's present, it's just bullshit rap-dance beats anyhow. It's pointless, an empty medium which could convey so much.

Chaos is a sick and senseless film with absolute lack of direction, meaning or creativity (except when it comes to methods of killing innocent people), and the unwanted bastard child of Last House which should have been nipped in the bud before it got worse.