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House on the Edge of the Park (1980)

Dir: Ruggero Deodato.

We open with an unexpectantly pleasant song playing over some footage of a city at night. This misleadingly sedate start, leads to a vicious rape/murder scene as Alex (David Hess) attacks a female driver. The Women is shown in full frontal nudity as she is stripped. This scene signposts the viewer to the brutal ride Deodato is about to take them on. We next see Alex in a garage with his socially backward friend Ricky (John 'Mr Radice' Morghen), who worships him.

A couple, Tom and Lisa, arrive at the garage. The driver Tom (Christian Borromeo, who Argento fans will recognize as the ill fated Mark from "Tenebre") says they have car trouble. Ricky fixes the car as Alex invites himself to a party that the couple are going to at their Uncles house. Once there, they're introduced to three others, two women and another man. All are typical 80's hip thrill seeking yuppies. Lisa makes moves on Alex as Ricky dances and strips for the others, who take condescending delight in his antics (the sight of Morghen dancing is the first truly disturbing scene to take place in the house).

While Ricky is being scammed in a rigged card game, Lisa teases and frustrates Alex in the shower, which provides us with some lovely shots of the soaped up naked body of Lisa. Unfortunately we see Hess's flabby ass as well, horrific scene indeed! An annoyed Alex comes back and notices Ricky being cheated. A fight breaks out and suddenly the guests are at the mercy of Alex and Ricky...

Although made 12 years after Craven's "Last House on the Left", Deodato's film follows the same basic formula and has the same lead actor, the bullish Hess, playing the same role. Even the ad campaign used "Last House" and Hess's connection to full effect. But Ruggero's film is a nastier beast, with none of the so called humour that watered Craven's effort down. Hess is wonderfully sadistic and completely ruthless and Morghen (giving yet another great, sleazy, weasel of a performance) is effective as his cowardly sidekick. The Yuppies are all deeply unpleasant, and only the sheer nastiness of Hess's actions elicits any sympathy for them.

As in Jungle Holocaust (one of the scriptwriters here, Gianfranco Clerici, also wrote "Jungle Holocaust") Deodato does not flinch from the nudity, as the women are stripped and pawed at. Even Hess is shown in full frontal shots. This open approach to naked flesh makes the violence even more uncomfortable. Almost all of the violent scenes have a sexual tint.

And the violence is harsh. A face is repeatedly smashed into a table top, the women are slapped and punched and in the films most notorious scene, a girl is stripped at the point of a razor blade, has the blade run over her breasts before she is cut, many times, by the blade across her stomach, breasts and naked groin. This scene makes for very uncomfortable viewing. The girl (played by a very young looking actress) screams and writhes as Hess, a mad leer on his face, takes sadistic joy in her pain and terror.

The overall atmosphere of the film is sleazy and degrading. Most of the women (the young girl being the only exception) are shown enjoying the assaults. In one amazingly distasteful scene, one of the women even makes love to Ricky (who in a previous rape scene had been unable to perform while Alex egged him on). Worse, this scene is edited together with the nasty razor attack on the young girl. It's this kind of sexual violence that got the film in such trouble with censor boards around the world.

The film has dated badly though. The fashions are appalling (just check out Hess's nightmarish 'Saturday Night Fever' suit) and some of the music is the worst kind of 80's pop/funk chic heard. Hell, even Telly Savales is mentioned!

Much has been written about the films twist ending. It's a very silly concept, especially considering the vicious events the characters open themselves up to. But until then, the film certainly handles its seemingly simplistic story line well. The film also drags in places and some of the set-ups are very laboured with almost no direction at times by Deodato.

But as an exercise in nastiness it's hard to fault the film. And in the universe of Exploitation Cinema, this is a powerful argument for the Horror fan with a stronger stomach to check it out.