The House on the Edge of the Park

Dir: Ruggero Deodato

1980

**

The House on the Edge of the Park is probably best known as one of the infamous video nasties that was initially rejected for a UK cinema certificate by the BBFC. While many of the films in this bracket really weren’t that bad, The House on the Edge of the Park absolutely deserved the term ‘nasty’. Not only is it nasty, but it is also a cheap rip-off. Wes Craven's The Last House on the Left had been so successful, that writers Gianfranco Clerici, Vincenzo Mannino, and director Ruggero Deodato, decided to film a shameless copy in the three weeks they had spare after finishing production on Cannibal Holocaust. It is a low-budget cheap shot. Before VHS and home video a film essentially disappeared after its initial release so I guess they hoped few people would have seen or remembered Craven's 1972 film, so confident/cheeky were the film makers, that they actually cast David Hess for the role of Alex because he played pretty much the same villain in The Last House on the Left. They wanted Hess so badly, that they gave him half the rights to the film. It was one of many violent thrillers to be given a "House" title in attempt to ride the success of Craven's earlier film – all of them are bad but to be fair they all share the same unnecessary nastiness of the original. Alex (David Hess) is a serial-killer driving around New York City at night when he spots a young woman, Susan, driving alongside him. He follows her to a nearby park where he rapes her before strangling her to death. He takes her locket as a trophy to another one of his many killings. Some time later, Alex and his friend Ricky are closing up the underground garage where they both work, planning to go to a local disco. Before they can leave, a Cadillac pulls in with a young, well-dressed couple, Tom and his girlfriend Lisa, asking for help with their car. Alex refuses to help them, saying that the garage is closed, but the slow-witted Ricky decides to help and easily fixes the problem. Tom tells Alex and Ricky that they are driving to a friend's house in New Jersey for a party, and invites them along. Before leaving, Alex stops by his locker, which is filled with various weapons he uses to murder people, and takes a straight-edged razor. The four arrive at a large villa where they are welcomed by the owner, Gloria, and her friends Glenda and Howard. Minutes later it becomes obvious to Alex and Ricky, that the rich people are looking for easy thrills. Gloria asks Ricky to do a striptease to some disco music and he makes a fool of himself, and is further humiliated by being goaded to drink alcohol with each move. However, Alex stops Ricky before he strips completely naked. Tom, Howard and Glenda next play poker with Ricky, while Lisa begins sexually teasing Alex and invites him upstairs to shower with her, only to push him away. As Alex grows more frustrated, he sees that the hosts are cheating at poker with Ricky. Alex pulls out the straight-edge razor, and a fight breaks out between him and Howard. Alex throws Howard outside the back door, beats him viciously, and throws him into the pool. Laughing, Alex urinates on Howard and drags him back inside, tying him to a piano leg and proclaiming that he is running the party now. Alex and Ricky proceed to beat on their hosts-turned-hostages with Alex slashing Tom's face with the razor and beating his face into the poker table. Ricky holds the others at bay with a wine bottle while Alex sexually assaults both Gloria and Glenda. Lisa runs to an upstairs bedroom where she tries to escape, but Alex catches her and proceeds to rape her. When Alex takes Lisa downstairs to rejoin the others, the doorbell rings. Alex forces Gloria to answer; when she opens the door, it's their teenage neighbor, Cindy. Alex grabs Cindy, while Gloria tries to escape. Ricky, still holding the broken wine bottle, runs outside after Gloria and catches her, showing Gloria that he means her no harm by tossing aside the wine bottle. Gloria responds to his simple nature by taking off her clothes and seducing him. Inside, Alex cuts Cindy's blouse off with the razor while singing. Ricky then returns to the house with Gloria just as Alex forces Cindy to strip off the rest of her clothes, and proceeds to savagely slash her with his razor over and over again. At this point, Ricky realizes they’ve gone too far and attempts to stop Alex. Upset at being betrayed by his friend, Alex turns against Ricky and slashes his abdomen wide open, and then breaks down in regret. Bloodied and battered, Tom runs into the nearby study and pulls out a 9mm pistol out from a desk drawer. Tom shoots Alex a few times, then kicks him through the glass back door. Gloria and the other women untie Howard, and the five descend upon the fatally wounded Alex lying on the ground. Tom removes the locket Alex is wearing and reveals the reason for all this: the woman that Alex raped and murdered at the park is Tom's sister and Tom wanted revenge. He and Lisa wanted to lure them to Gloria's house so they could kill them and make it look like self-defense. After shouting at him, Tom shoots the wounded Alex in the groin, making him fall into the swimming pool. Tom and Lisa take turns shooting Alex, who thrashes weakly in the water, before a final bullet to the head by Howard finishes him for good. Returning to the house, Gloria stops Howard from shooting Ricky, while Glenda tends to the wounded Cindy. Tom and Lisa go into the study where they talk about their plan. Tom says that despite some mistakes, that it worked out for the best, and then picks up the phone to call the police. Giving Clerici, Mannino and Deodato, the film does add a clever twist to the ‘house’ format but it comes after so much brutal violence, that it is impossible to ‘celebrate’. If I had to compare all of the ‘house’ films I would say this one was best, but the fact that it came last, after so many awful films, and considering how brilliant Clerici, Mannino and Deodato usually are, I have to say it is the worst. Cannibal Holocaust is a masterpiece, one of the greatest horror/thrillers ever made. It is low budget but full of great ideas, it started the found-footage sub-genre and still hasn’t been bettered. The one thing I will give the film makers credit for however is that they know what is scary – people. Goblins, ghosts, Aliens…sure they’re scary but they’re not real, people are, and people are the worst. It’s well crafted and the contemporary horror masterpiece Funny Games owes it a lot but you have to be a questionable character to really enjoy a film such as this. It is nasty and I didn’t enjoy it but David A. Hess was brilliant in his character as he always was and the shots of 1970s New York are glorious.