Last House on Dead End Street

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Movie
German title Last House on Dead End Street
Original title Last House on Dead End Street
Country of production United States
original language English
Publishing year 1977
length 74 minutes
Age rating FSK 18
Rod
Director Roger Michael Watkins (as Victor Janos)
script Roger Michael Watkins (as Brian Laurence)
production Roger Michael Watkins (as Norman F. Kaiser)
music James Flamberg
Roger Watkins
camera Ken Fisher (as Alexander Tarsk)
cut Roger Michael Watkins (as Brian Newett)
occupation

Last House on Dead End Street is an American exploitation film directed by Roger Michael Watkins from 1977. The horror film plays with motifs from the snuff film and contains explicit depictions of violence.

action

Terry Hawkins has just been released from prison and decides to become a filmmaker. Since the market for porn seems too exhausted to him, he decides to make snuff films. He puts together a team of failed filmmakers and porn actresses and shoots the first recordings, which he shows to wealthy society. All of this goes too far for his producer Steve Randell. So Terry decides to kidnap and torment him and his wife. While his wife is being gutted alive, he is forced to simulate oral sex on a severed deer hoof. He is then killed. A text on screen then informs the viewer that the entire film team was later sentenced to 999 years in prison.

background

The film was originally due to be released back in 1972, but one of the actresses threatened to sue Watkins for using various hardcore porn scenes from her in the film. The film was only released in an alternative version in 1979. There should be a 175-minute rough cut. All participants carried pseudonyms, which helped to create the legend that some of the scenes were real. In fact, the pseudonyms were only discovered later. According to legend, the film was either a film student's thesis or a Mexican snuff film.

publication

The film was considered a myth for many years. There were various bootlegs in circulation that were either strictly limited or had extremely poor image quality. In 2002 a DVD version was released by Barrell Entertainment, which refuted the myth. The DVD included making-of material and early work by filmmaker Watkins showing him from a different perspective. The original image material was on Super 8 and is now dirty from long storage, so the image and sound quality of more recent publications is not particularly good.

In German-speaking countries, too, only bootlegs were available. However, the film was released in full on DVD from 2000 by various providers, including CMV, Eyeless Entertainment and X-Cess in various limitations and with various bonus materials.

criticism

Due to the myth that arose around the film, it was a very popular horror film for many years, but only shows three explicit scenes: a very long evisceration, oral sex with the animal's hoof and a scene in which a man is naked Whipping woman. Last House on Dead End Street contributed to the snuff myth with similar films such as Wizard of Gore (1970), the Guinea Pig series and Bloodsucking Freaks (1976) .

“LAST HOUSE ON DEAD END STREET is a disturbing piece (pseudo) snuff theater that comes from the depths of the underground and has a legendary reputation in splatter circles. And the film has a triple of rough, all devastating scenes up its sleeve that justify this reputation. With a sick, mangy atmosphere, a zero entertainment value and the many tough passages, however, Roger Watkins makes it easy for the viewer to hate his work. At first I didn't like the film either, but now I think LAST HOUSE ON DEAD END STREET is powerful in an uncomfortably perverse way and that Watkins' courage to explore the limits has to be recognized. "

- Christian Ade : Filmtipps.at

“Without a doubt one of the most hideous contributions on the subject of hell in the house is the thoroughly misanthropic Last House on Dead End Street (1977) (…) The film derives a large part of its shock effect from the fact that the boundaries between recording, inciting and participating in the Violence blur. "

- Chas Balun : I spit in your face. Snappy films

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Trivia. In: Internet Movie Database . Retrieved April 13, 2013 .
  2. ↑ Last House on Dead End Street in the All Movie Guide (English)
  3. ^ A b Christian Ade: Last House on Dead End Street. Filmtipps.at, accessed on April 13, 2013 .
  4. ↑ Eric Campos: Last House on Dead End Street. Filmthreat.com, October 29, 2002; archived from the original on September 5, 2012 ; Retrieved April 13, 2013 .
  5. ^ Last House On Dead End Street. Horror-Page.de, archived from the original on April 29, 2013 ; Retrieved April 13, 2013 .
  6. ↑ Last House on Dead End Street in the online film database
  7. ↑ Chas. Balun: I spit in your face. Snappy films . In: Splatterpunk 2 . Heyne Verlag, Munich 1993, ISBN 3-453-06438-0 , p. 190 f .