Last House On Dead End Street (DVD)

...Grave, and then someone mentioned Last House On Dead End Street. While Texas Chainsaw Massacre and I first met about 10 years ago, and I Spit followed a few years later; Last House On Dead End Street kind of eluded me. It would be bought up in conversation then forgotten, where as normally as soon as something comes up I immediately make a purchase. It was not until recently however when sorting through a massive stock of DVD’s I purchased some 4 ...
...the appeal to me of Last House On Dead End Street is that it enters the seedy world of snuff movies. With films like 8mm, Thesis and a brief touch in Hardcore; I had high expectations. This after all was apparently a movie that was regarded as an inspiration piece, and certainly something the producers of 8mm had seen.

The film is shot in a grainy print, the colours turned to sepia (washed out brown) to give a look of dirty grittiness. ... more

Through the passages of time there are certain movies that are spoken about with a sort of legendary status. For me my niche area is horror movies, from as far back as I can remember people spoke of The Texas Chainsaw Massacre. A few years later and I started to hear about I Spit On Your Grave, and then someone mentioned Last House On Dead End Street. While Texas Chainsaw Massacre and I first met about 10 years ago, and I Spit followed a few years later; Last House On Dead End Street kind of eluded me. It would be bought up in conversation then forgotten, where as normally as soon as something comes up I immediately make a purchase. It was not until recently however when sorting through a massive stock of DVD’s I purchased some 4 years ago that I discovered for the last few years I had been sitting on this “gem”.

Gem is by far a word that should be used loosely in summing up this incredibly disappointing movie. I found the whole story so bizarre and baffling that I can’t even generate the wording to create a decent overview of the movie. But what I do gather is that a guy called Terry is released from prison with a grudge. Having had chance to settle he gathers a team of loyal friends and seemingly sets out to get his revenge on a group of film-makers.

The reason for the appeal to me of Last House On Dead End Street is that it enters the seedy world of snuff movies. With films like 8mm, Thesis and a brief touch in Hardcore; I had high expectations. This after all was apparently a movie that was regarded as an inspiration piece, and certainly something the producers of 8mm had seen.

The film is shot in a grainy print, the colours turned to sepia (washed out brown) to give a look of dirty grittiness. And most of the scenes are shot very much in the darkness. I am reminded of the movies of Andy Warhole in particular Trash when it comes to this kind of film making. Everything on screen is edgy, like its literally being improvised which in itself I appreciate is not a bad quality. There is also a certain degree of film analysis that goes on as a sort of sub-plotline.

The film itself is just diabolical; you cannot clearly identify any of the characters. As well as the edgy filming so many of the actors look very much alike, in particular Terry and one of his film crew. The editing in the movie is incredibly bad, none of the pieces add up to anything very much. Nothing is ever explained, the grudge is never explained, and the reason for some of the more laborious scenes just seem like they are there to make the movie achieve a certain runtime. There are odd random scenes designed to illustrate a point, like one of the movie producers wives being involved in the S & M scene; incidentally the whipping scene is just awful, she paints herself up like the black and white minstrels then gets whipped by a disabled man, with a similarity to Igor from the Frankenstein movies. After a period of time with her being beaten I started counting the lashes, unaware of how many I missed she takes 213 lashes and amazingly still stays standing. Another annoying element of this is that the lashes, her flinches of pain, and the noises are all out of sync with each other.

Having endured 45 minutes of this terrible movie we enter our first snuff sequence in which a vagrant is tied to a pillar in a deserted building, kissed by two women before being throttled to death. These scene does not deliver any impact, I actually sat there thinking good, now kill the rest of them so this movie can be over. From here on it’s a child’s view of psychological horror, and random snuff scenes; but none of it culminates in anything very much.

And this is the movie in a nutshell; there is no deep meaning, no moments of humour, no message to deliver, and worse of all no plot. As if that’s not bad enough most of the time you cannot even figure out what the actors are saying as the sound is so appalling.
I’d be far understating the fact if I said that this was the worst movie I had scene this year, and probably to say it’s the worst movie I have seen in my entire life would certainly come close. This movie tries to be artsy but ultimately just delivers nothing; it’s terrible from start to finish.

The DVD comes as a two disc set; with the special features being as followed: Director Roger Watkins Short Films, every single one of these was awful, pointless and bland stuff with no content at all, some of them don’t even appear to be complete, like elements of them are missing. The Trailer – This is about the best thing about the movie, short, snappy and to the point; unlike the movie making this trailer a gross deception. A series of outtakes; which could, in my opinion have just stayed in the movie for all its worth.

This movie and the DVD contents just don’t add up to the legend the movie paves for itself.

The DVD is available from most online retailers Amazon, and Play included for about £7.99. Take my advice however, and seriously consider this purchase, believe me nobody loves movies of this genre more than me; and I’ll see excellence in some of the worst, but here I find nothing at all. 

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