House On The Edge Of The Park
In 1973, Wes Craven made a stunning debut with his Last House On The Left, a crudely shot, poorly made film that nonetheless succeeded (to a point) of portraying Cravenâs stated goal of showing real life horror and violence as unleashed by everyday human beings on each other as being much more sickening and perverse than anything that you would see in the movies. Depicting a gang of vicious thugs brutally raping and murdering two young girls before getting their own just desserts, the film shocked the world even as today it clearly undermines itself with badly placed humor and a slew of bad acting (some have even tried to overpraise it as some kind of Vietnam allegory which it clearly isnât) with the exception amongst the performers being lead actor David Hess who played the main gang member Krug Stillo. Chillingly mannered in the way in which he approaches women with almost a serpentine way about him and then striking with such a calculating, cold blooded cruelty that you almost wonder if the actor himself wasnât really a sexual predator in real life, the truth about Hess is that he was actually a songwriter / musician who had composed a number of songs for Elvis Presley (most notably All Shook Up) and kind of fell into acting through a chance encounter with Craven after which he was typecast as ultra sleazy types who seemed to specialize in making women feel uncomfortable without (or before) ever even touching them by projecting the clear vibe that IF he ever got them into bed that he would be the one in charge (an attitude that would certainly win his various characters few friends in 2016). In 1980, Hess would team with Italian cannibal and exploitation film director Ruggero Deodato for this little opus, considered by many to be an unofficial follow up to Last House but despite the low budget here was still a film that easily bested Cravenâs in terms of not only production quality but also in what turned out to be a scathing social commentary concerning class warfare on how the bored and idle rich can possibly play unfair, manipulative games with the so called lower ranks just to demonstrate the power that their money has entitled them to hold over such little people. In fact, if it wasnât made explicitly clear early on that Hess was back to his same old evil ways from Last House, he might almost be considered the hero of sorts here, striking back at the elitist snobs as he does with the sort of twisted justice that only he can provide until an incident late in the film on his part against an actual, genuine innocent reduces him back down to being the same kind of lowlife scumbag that we would expect his character to be especially considering that the advertising didnât hide the fact that the movie featured the original Last House villain back up to his old tricks. Hess plays Alex, a working class mechanic (who usually carries either a switchblade or a straight razor just in case he runs into trouble) getting ready to go out on the town (complete with John Travolta suit) with his mildly retarded buddy (Giovanni Lombardo Radice, a mainstay in Italian horror of the 80s) when suddenly a last minute customer pulls in with some engine trouble. After fixing the problem in a snap, the wealthy guy and girl invite him and his friend out to their fancy villa for what apparently is some kind of a get together and the two accept. What follows after this is we get the two lower class types mingling among the obviously bored rich people trying to find a way to fit in. These rich people are SO bored in fact, that the whole thing turns into a sort of âpig partyâ where they continuously find ways to mock and belittle the two peons in their midst in order to purposely antagonize them and THEN see what happens. As Hess watches while his simpleton buddy is first humiliated by being made to dance wildly and then cheated during a rigged game of poker as Hess himself is teased and tempted by one of the more beautiful looking girls there before being brutally rejected, it isnât long before it dawns on him that they are being made an example of by these rich bastards who want to dangle the freedoms of a better, more carefree life in front of them before yanking it away and sending them back to their shithole existence laughing at them all the while. Words turn to fists as Hess easily overpowers the two males on the premises, tying one up (after pissing on him) and making the clearly weaker of the two stand and watch (after bashing his face in) as he and his buddy help themselves to the various females on hand, including an African American with a shaved head (whom Hess snidely calls âRootsâ), the icy bitch who had tormented him earlier (and then willingly gives herself to him more out of fear than anything else), and a fearful beauty in a stunning red dress (whom the buddy takes a liking to). Through it all we wonder why these kind of people would bring two shady, dangerous types into their home and then purposely antagonize them to the point of violence until it dawns on us that not only were they literally THAT bored with their own affluent lives, but it almost seems at times that they might actually be ENJOYING being put under the brutal thumb of such an uncouth, animalistic type like Hess who can completely take control of their environment and thus subject them to whatever his sick whims at any given moment might be. And it is there that the film puts out the challenge of deciphering whether the methods and values of each side (along with a motive that is revealed during the twist ending) really do cancel out each other in terms of asking which of these characters (if any) are actually the âgood peopleâ here or if weâre just watching legitimately scummy people from both sides of the social spectrum enacting their own forms of torture and manipulation because it is what they all enjoy doing the most in order to justify their miserable lives. Certainly a case can be made for the simpleton buddy having an ounce of decency late in the film due to him finally thinking for himself and finding fault with Hessâ actions which leads to a brutal confrontation on their part or for the girl in the red dress who seems to find disgust both with her own friendsâ behavior along with those who have assaulted them. All of which are much deeper themes than anything found in Cravenâs film, as Last Houseâs two victims certainly did nothing to bring their fate upon themselves and the brutal demise of the gang at the hands of the parents was little more than just straightforward revenge with no strings attached. But here the real bestowment of guilt becomes even more skewed when a teenage neighbor girl drops by to visit (with no knowledge of anything that is going on) and her virginal beauty and innocence becomes like blood in the water for Hessâ shark, but as he carries out a horrifying act of perverted sexual violence (admittedly a very hard scene to watch for many), the fact that the others just stand around and watch it all almost passively (seemingly because theyâre all glad heâs no longer taking out his rage on them and also because itâs like their own private, voyeuristic sexual circus), the fact that Hess would not have even been there in the first place had they not brought him to the house so that he could have harmed this girl when she stopped by (with them also knowing what Hess was capable of) certainly makes a case for shared responsibility here in what happens to her which obviously they would never reveal the details of afterwards. Director Deodato keeps the pacing tight, the eroticism to a maximum (plenty of nudity on hand for a non porn film), and also makes superb use of close up reaction shots the whole film for the various characters looking on at Hessâ antics (nearly every one has some kind of dramatic weight). While Craven used methods of pure exploitation to create unfiltered, realistic horror, this film makes you truly think that before you judge those who are poorer and worse off than you are for all of the stupid and badly thought out decisions that they make, just remember that those at the top of the food chain probably made plenty of morally questionable ones themselves in order to get to where they are in life as wellâŚ
9/10