ON THE LIST: House On The Edge Of The Park

Two of the major associates of House On The Edge Of The Park had previously found notoriety, and placement on the Video Nasty list before this 1980 collaboration. Director Ruggero Deodato rose to infamy with his previous film Cannibal Holocaust, not only paving the way for the torrent of 'found footage' horrors we face today, but creating such a convincing film that he was formally charged with murdering his actors, and was forced to bring them to court to prove they were still alive! Star David Hess launched his acting career as Krug Stillo in Wes Craven's Last House On The Left. In fact, after Deodato watched Last House, he was so desperate to team up with Hess that he offered him half of all the movie's takings. Regardless of whether or not this happened, the two made their first of an eventual six collaborations, and started a lifelong friendship.

House On The Edge Of The Park is very different to Cannibal Holocaust and Last House, except for the kind of violence it portrays. The plot hangs on a revelation at the end. For this reason, I shall hereby declare a ***SPOILER ALERT***. The movie begins on a bold note,  with scatty cuts between the New York City skyline and lead antagonist Alex (David Hess) driving at night. He eyes up a young woman driving alongside him (Karoline Mardeck - Hess' wife under a pseudonym) and runs her off the road before raping and strangling her. This sort of sets the mood for the rest of the movie, and is the vital key to the remainder of the story.

Sometime after (we find out later a year has passed), Alex is in the garage he works in with his buddy Ricky, who is played with such fluency by Giovanni Lombardo Radice that we don't need to guess if he's all there in the head. This actor has quite extraordinary eyes, which are pivotal to us interpreting Ricky. He looks at times quite vacant, with a sideways expression, but when he straightens up and looks dead on, he is very engaging and unsettling. Alex is shutting up shop and dressing in a way-too-tight yellow suit to 'go boogyin'', when a young rich couple, Tom and Lisa (Christian Borromeo and Annie Belle) roll up with a false complaint of car trouble. Alex wants to boogie, and the couple are on their way to a get-together, so Alex basically invites himself along, and the couple are hardly resistent.

The running theme of class conflict is introduced quite early on, with Lisa condescendingly asking Alex about his living. When they get to the gorgeous pad where the party's at, Howard (Gabriele Di Giulio), Gloria (Lorraine De Selle) and Glenda (Marie Claude Joseph) are waiting. They, too, are unperturbed by the unexpected presence of Alex and Ricky, and everyone starts off having a swell time. Ricky is eager to demonstrate his dance skills, much to the odd enjoyment of the young rich folk, who laugh and yell things like 'Hot diggity!' and 'Strip! Strip!' Ricky's easy coercion by the latter exclamation displeases Alex, who grabs his friends and demands that he stops humiliating himself for the enjoyment of the rich bastards.

So instead they suggest a Poker game. While Ricky is busy getting his ass kicked and his money taken, Alex quickly pursues the sly smiles and batting eyes of Lisa, who pointedly informs him that she's off for a shower. Right at the beginning of a party. OK... She teases him into the shower with her, before making a quick exit and angering him greatly. This puts Alex's real character into motion, and where we may have first assumed that Deodato cast Hess for an effective reprisal of Krug, Alex is quite different. Hess himself noted the intelligence levels of the two characters: while Krug is very cunning and controlled, Alex is childish, stroppy and loud when he doesn't get his own way.

When he returns downstairs and realises Ricky is being cheated in the Poker game, out comes the razor blade Alex decidedly took with him from the garage, and the party turns into a violent home invasion/hostage situation. This part lasts a long time, and sees every member of the 'Young Rich' players being either beaten, threatened or sort-of raped. The rape is the difficult bit, and not really because it is very upsetting, but because it is difficult to class as 'rape'. Two of the three women seem to show some sort of genuine sexual interest in the men - Gloria to Ricky and Lisa to Alex - and when these two couples each eventually have sex, it plays out in quite a passionate and pleasing manner. Lisa having spent a good time being a serious cocktease, Alex feels entitled to payout from her, and although she hesitantly undresses, she soon appears perfectly consensual. Gloria and Ricky share a very sensual scene out in the garden.

Anyway, after Alex and Ricky have had their fill of the present guests, the doorbell rings, and gorgeous young Cindy (Brigitte Petronio) from across the street is here. Where the others take one or another opportunity to manipulate or attack the fellas, Cindy takes none, or rather doesn't get the opportunity. She is stripped naked and slashed up by Alex, in the scene most often noted in 'censorship'-related writings. Her role is not an active one; perhaps it only exists to emphasise Alex's callous cruelty. But - in another touch I'm sure Hess himself added - Alex leers over the girl, extensively, grimly singing a lullaby to her, and it is unnervingly menacing.


But while all this is going on, Tom (who looks strikingly like River Phoenix) finally reaches the gun in the drawer, and Alex having accidentally stabbed Ricky in a fit of juvenile rage, the tables most definitely turn. Ricky is bleeding out, and Alex is at gun point, and Tom drops the bomb...the girl at the beginning of the movie was his sister, and this whole night was a set-up on their part. Wow...so taking in this shocking piece of information, let us reassess everything we have just seen. As a precursor to the revenge of the rape of one girl, six people allow themselves to be beaten, humiliated and sexually assaulted. Some may say that's a little nonsensical or counterproductive. They could be right. Or we just imagine that they are hardcore yuppies who know that two dead street guys in their palatial house would spell one thing to the police: self-defense during break-in. These guys really fight hard for their cause.

Well, after all the havoc he's caused, it's only right that Alex gets a quick, painless execution shot to the forehead, right? Nah, these guys are hardcore remember? So after no less than three bullets to the torso, the youngsters do the unthinkable...BULLET TO THE DICK! This is my absolute favourite sequence in the movie. Because immediately the film cuts to Alex's face in slow-mo, from the moment of impact throughout the recognition of pain, and the effects of this on face and voice are tremendously heightened by the dragging pace. It is true, that as well as being very creative and effective, this sequence is easy to laugh about. I wonder if that is a trick by Deodato, that after such ceaseless aggression and intimidation by Alex, we are finally in a position to laugh at him, to mock him. It carries out upon the audience the same mental switch of dominance that the characters themselves feel.

So after the brutal shot to the shlong, Alex falls back into the swimming pool, and Howard stalks the water's edge, finding himself in a position Alex was in earlier, in which he continually kicked Howard back into the water, and pissed on his head. Howard drags Alex out of the water, offering help. Alex, finally looking like the child he acts, gazes up at his rescuer, wrapping his arms around his neck. He is finally helpless. Howard then throws him back into the pool, where Tom and Lisa take turns in shooting him finally dead, leaving his body floating on the water. I really like the ending of House on the Edge of the Park for the dauntless way in which it reaps what it sows. David Hess' sinister onscreen presence often allows little room for sympathy (except for the beautiful Remorse sequence in Last House), but with Alex he boldly tapped into a vulnerability that we somehow felt was always there, waiting to be provoked, which he responds to with cynicism and violence.