Stephen Abell This film isn't as bad as it should be. Let me explain, the concept is that after serving a sentence in prison for drug related crimes Roger Watkins has had an epiphany. Kill people for fame and money. To do this he will make snuff movies with the help of his friends. Then for it to be told from the miscreant's point of view is a horrifying idea.However, writer, director, and actor, Terry Hawkins does not turn this into an exploitation film or glorify or condone the horror's portrayed within. What he gives his viewers is a psychological chiller, which is heavy on the chills. Hawkins actually makes the audience think and reflect on the nature of the participants of the crimes committed. I came away feeling mentally cold and more than a little sickened, which is a pretty hard thing to do as I have a strong stomach. This emotion is a good thing though as I believe it was the aim of the filmmaker. This is thought-provoking entertainment and not a happy and joyful performance; you should not come away from this movie feeling cheerful. It should make the audience at least start to wonder how dark the thoughts within mankind are. How far would one go to make money(?) Or to be the person they are under their "Normal-World" mask?The original title when the film was released in 1974 was The Fun House and there are rumours of the BBFC getting it wrong by banning the wrong Funhouse by choosing Tobe Hooper's film of that name from 1981 - see my review here. When it was rereleased in 1977 to larger audiences somebody had the idea to use Wes Craven's success with The Last House On The Left to rename it to the present title.I liked the way Hawkins builds up to the story. The movie starts out slow as he paints the picture of Roger Watkins', his dream, the recruitment of his friends, and the choice of his victims. Then when the killings start he takes his time to pull all the tension and disgust out of his viewers with some very nasty and graphic images. The special effects team, as well as the lighting crew and cameramen, do a magnificent job of making all of this feel and appear realistic. I've seen some pretty nasty horrific special effects, though this is one of the few that has stayed with me.There's also the concept of what's next(?) In this film, Hawkins asks the question of the porn business. When people have become used to and complacent with the normal sex acts and even S&M is becoming run-of-the- mill then what's the next big thing(?) To some extent, this is still evident today on the internet, so this notion and opinion are still viable today, especially when you get psychopaths posting animal cruelty videos online.Hawkins is also a pretty good director and though it feels like it's been shot on a hand-held 8mm there are some good camera angles and iconic shots which also add strength to the movie. The use of imagery, particularly the use of Greek masks adds a nice eeriness. Apart from the unrelenting depravity, the only thing which makes this film a little grating is the acting which is below average, though to be fair, most of the actors are students.Would I recommend this to anyone? Yes: To anyone looking to create horrific imagary, either for a horror or a thriller film then watch this movie... this is how it should be done, this is the kind of atmosphere you should be looking to create. The same can be said of directors who are working on a budget. If you're a film fan and have a strong constitution and enjoy thought-provoking movies then this could be for you, but don't think you'll be a happy bunny at the end of watching it.

tomgillespie2002 Written, directed, produced and staring Roger Watkins (he used the pseudonym Victor Janos for this title), in 1973, but not released until later - he had only previously (and subsequently) made porn movies, Last House on Dead End Street is a gruelling piece of cinema. This is not to say that the gore (or special effects), are of particular note, but that it is, in the essence of the film, an incredibly hateful, almost evil one, that pervades the raw material of the cheep 16mm home-style movie cameras. The title was a cash-in, by distributors, of the success of The Last House on the Left (1972), but was previously named The Cuckoo Clocks of Hell, and The Funhouse. The film poster also "used" the ...on the Left tag line: 'It's only a movie....only a movie'.Terry Hawkins (played by Watkins), is a pornographer, who wants to film something new, something different. He settles on the idea of making a snuff movie. It would be quite an epic, as Hawkins finds a derelict mansion, with many empty rooms, decaying and dank. He invites friends over to 'make a movie' - albeit people who had f****d him off in some way. They are humiliated, abused, and many don't survive. Hawkins is the "snuff" movie director, barking a vicious hate from his very soul (this is quite tense and realistic acting from the actor). You can believe these excruciating scenes seem painfully real, as Watkins/Hawkins genuinely excretes animosity, to the other actors, to the audience. At moments during the filming, another cameraman would move the lens of his 16mm camera towards the screen we see. The audience is almost made implicit to the horrific torture played out on screen, the camera now staring into your eyes, watching you viewing gruesome terror.The film has many of these harsh and morally contentious moments. You do question yourself whilst watching. It actually does appear to have been made by a psychopath. In one strange sequence, a man is forced to suck on an animals hoof that is protruding from the unzipped trousers of a woman. There is a lot of pseudo-Grecian mythological iconography here. Masks and mild symbolism can be seen in the 'rituals' of the torture/killings.It is an exercise in sadism, much more gruesome than modern day torture- porn (also known as gorenography) such as Hostel, or the Saw franchise. This is because it gets under our skin with its deep-rooted malevolence, and its ability to almost scrutinise us. The amateurish style of the film really adds to this. The original cut of the film, has been authorised by Watkins, was nearly 3 hours long. Not sure if could handle the 'directors cut' for this one. Filmed in New York, it could almost have been an Andy Warhol film, before Paul Morrissey started directing movies for Andy Warhol Productions. I'm doubtful that I will ever watch this film again.www.the-wrath-of-blog.blogspot.com

Kaliyugaforkix ???According to urban legend, the Manson family not only conducted bizarre ritual murders, they also filmed them for posterity and somewhere deep in the California desert, its reputed that the canisters holding said antics are buried far beneath the sand, ripe for re-discovery by some hapless soul. I think Last House on Dead-end Street would prove to be an accurate primer of whatever was stored on those unholy frames, or at least a realistic portrayal of the mindset it takes to mount such a twisted home movie.Terry Hawkins, freshly released from the big house, sets out to make snuff films and succeeds past his wildest expectations when he orchestrates the elaborately choreographed execution of his business associates for assuming the credit for his new underground film movement.As its been said before & which I swear by, 'bad' movies can be sublime, achieving the indefinable in their steadfast refusal to play by the rules, getting surreal results 'good' movies can't touch with their off kilter rhythms. Such monstrosities & freaks-shows are best viewed in the arena of post midnight tribulation, when you can't sleep & celluloid out-of-body experiences are most likely.A minor work of no-budget film-making, Dead End is one of the poorest, cheaply made pieces of celluloid I've seen, and it still works. All the pieces are put together in the wrong way but the twisted logic of it remains. It survives as pure atmosphere. Admittedly it starts off dire, drifting into the aimlessness of a bad grind-house experience, the type only improved with recreational narcotics & full Mystery Science Theater treatment, but somewhere along the way (probably once the 'rituals' begin) your conscious mind takes a back seat to the nightmare-in- progress. That out-of-phase dubbing especially begins to rub in exactly the wrong/right way, throwaway incompetence that seems to(deliberately?) mask something more disquieting. I don't really know how else to describe it: initially coming off as laughable, if you stick with it, the mangled quality of this poisonous enterprise begins to hypnotize, initial disarming shoddiness allowing a seed of something greater to burrow into your head, a deeper vision that's not as easy to laugh off once that frigging creepy Greek tragedy mask comes out. It's like a midnight transmission from Mars, the kind of experience where you question the director's mental health.Watched in a disassociated daze, the jumbled noise activates parts of your brain long dormant. Cutting the distracting dialogue all together and just going on music & footage might've even strengthened it. There's something really weird going on here.The combination of grainy gritty film stock, poverty row locations, claustrophobic framing and vile subject matter combine to make a unique, hallucinatory mood. Director Watkins was working with peanuts here and its forever apparent, from the awful sound to the non acting- this is a sweat and blood, true labor of twisted love. Believe me it shows: Hawkins must've been one cheesed off young punk when he mounted this exercise in despair because the suppressed animosity and bitterness of a seriously miffed youth vibrates throughout the lean-mean 78 minutes..... definitely a 70's curio. When Hawkins flies into a rage at one point during the shock murders of the film's latter half, screaming over and over, "I'M DIRECTING THIS F%$KIN MOOOOVIE!" you aren't quite sure where Terry ends and Rog begins.The sheer grunge throughout is another thing; it accesses a depraved realism through its bottom barrel-ness. Amateurishness is key. Claustrophobia, feeling trapped in a crumbling asbestos-ridden rat hole is palpable, filth and decay leaking through the screen to infect viewers. One of those fabulous times at the movies that makes you want to take a scalding shower after.Very much a work of its day when general disillusionment abounded, the loser characters who populate Watkins's film have not much further to sink in their respective depravity- they truly are dead-ends, mouthing empty hippie jargon, running on the fumes of something long dead, all sunken eyes & bad skin. What's shown is all that's going on in these empty heads. The paltry lot are all surface and eagerly jump on Hawkin's new idea without much deliberation-like any good ambitious American- which is purely for rich upper crust smut consumers who've grown weary with typical hardcore frivolity. Snuff: the next logical step in flesh-as-commodity ( no doubt such things exist). The plot isn't really that important to Last House though, its the stiflingly bleak presentation of a scorched earth populated by only perverts and freaks, which Watkins assembles with only 800$ and a lot of recreational drugs to his name. It packs a bite 30 years on. Only the tacked-on narration feebly attempting to provide the viewer with some sense of closure is a misstep.Through the apparatus of 'bad movie' Watkins did with a shoestring what few directors could do with lavish budgets- communicate an unadulterated vision of tangible hell on Earth, caked with dirt, sleaze and ennui. It's a shame he only churned out a few pornos before quitting the scene altogether. I hope to check them out one day.This is a bad dream, not a film.

The_Void Also known as The Fun House, this film is often mistaken for being one of the UK 'Video Nasties', and that's not surprising - as it's rather nasty. Bizarrely, however, the film wasn't included on the list as in a cock-up typical of such people that would sift through a back catalogue of movies, banning everything with a slight hint of blood - they banned the wrong film! (Tobe Hooper's "The Funhouse"). Ironically, this would have been one of the more worthy films on the DPP list as the violence is often relentless and always uncompromising, and the snuff scenes are far more grisly and graphic than the one seen at the end of the notorious 'Snuff'. The film is shot on an ultra-thin budget and it shows, but this time it actually helps the film as it appears much like the underground snuff movies that it attempts to imitate. The plot is resoundingly thin and simply follows a deranged young man who gets out of prison and decides to repay his debt to society with movie-making - only he's not making feel good movies, as he uses his film stock to shoot footage of people being brutally murdered! This film won't appeal to anyone that likes their movies fluffy and nice, but it should do the trick for anyone that enjoys scenes of torture. I can't say that I'm the biggest exploitation fan going, but it's hard to deny that this film successfully achieves what it set out to do. It's fair to say that the death scenes aren't all that realistic, and it's always clear that this is nothing but a movie - but the masses of gore are delightful and it's good that director Roger Michael Watkins wasn't happy to have all of his victims killed in similar ways. We've got a variety of weaponry on display, which ranges from hedge saws to power drills and all of them are put to their unintended uses. At one point in the movie, the would-be director states that a good horror film needs good actors, although this film doesn't have any. The director himself does put in an interesting performance, however, and always convinces as the sick character that he's portraying. There isn't a great deal of humour on display, but the action is always fascinating and this is a good film if you're into this sort of stuff.