Cover Art

Credits

Director: Ruggero Deodato Starring: David A. Hess, Giovanni Lombardo Radice, Annie Belle, Christian Borromeo, Marie Claude Joseph, Gabriel Di Guilio, Brigitte Petronio, Karoline Mardeck, Lorraine De Selle Screenplay: Gianfranco Clerici, Vincenzo Mannino Music: Riz Ortolani Country: Italy AKA: La Casa sperduta nel parco

By the way – that's not the version I'll be reviewing.

Alex (David Hess) and Ricky (Giovanni Lombardo Radice) are two sadistic nutcases who gatecrash a party and terrorise, torture, beat, molest and rape the young, rich, "classy", yet morally repellent people attending, for mocking them and their perceived lack of "class". It sounds grim, but watching it is even grimmer. Home invasion hell, basically.

I think when you get to the end, when Alex is using a straight-razor to carve up blond, virginal Cindy, you've probably hit Ruggero Deodato's ultimate low point as a director. Well, in terms of horribleness, anyway. Then it unexpectedly becomes a rape revenge film, and they're never pretty.

Is it a good film? I think so. It's not pretty, and it's certainly not for everyone, but if you want a nasty piece of work that's gruelling and totally unrelenting, you'd be damn hard-pressed to find a better example. It's kind of like if you had a copy of Last House on the Left that didn't have any of the stupid, slapstick comedy – just the unremitting bleak violence and sadism, or maybe Night Train Murders multiplied to its own exponential power. The lengths the revenger goes to in order to exact his toll – allowing various friends to be raped, sliced, beaten and otherwise abused – makes sure that no character in this film is sympathetic, even the perceived "hero". Everyone is grimy, tainted and horrible. Except maybe Cindy, although she's kind of a peripheral character at best, turning up in the last act of the film. We feel sorry for her because she turns up to a party, gets debased in front of a bunch of her friends and has her boobs sliced up with a straight-razor. But there is no depth to the character – she's simply there to be a victim. Which I guess is pretty fucking callous on the part of the director and the writer to begin with.

Is it merely exploitative? Jury's out, kids. I think you need to make that judgement on your own. I'm not saying it isn't exploitation – it is – but in my opinion, I think it goes further than being just exploitation.

It's probably worth watching just to see David Hess play the least-likeable screen villain ever (besides maybe John Lucker or the nameless necrophiliac from Aftermath). Seriously, he really pulls out ALL the stops in this baby – makes his performance as Krug in Last House on the Left look like about as threatening a villain as Dick Dastardly. But (and it's a big but, kinda like mine…) his death-scene is awful; seriously, the facial expression after he gets shot in the groin is laughably poor. But up until that point, I totally bought his performance – he's probably the only complex or developed character in what would have to rate as one of the most bleak and depressing films I've ever seen – and that includes Salo, Emanuelle In America, Devil's Experiment and Men Behind the Sun. Most of the rest of the actors (with the notable exception of the always reliable and entertaining Giovanni Lombardo Radice) are little better than cardboard cut-outs at best, even the usually competent Lorraine De Selle, a woman who's topless so often in the movies I've seen her in, I've begun to think her boobs are afraid of the dark.

Violent, depressing, morally questionable. Definitely worth a look, if you like that kind of thing. I do. Mind you, depending on where you live in the world, it's most likely banned or heavily cut.