Review: Last House on Dead End Street
Director: Roger Watkins
Last House on Dead End Street (also known as Fun House) gets it's name from the distributors trying to cash in on the success of Last House on the Left (see Cancerkid's review). The promotional materials rip off the "it's only a movie" tag line, and try to make it appear like a sequel. This movie has nothing to do with Craven's Last House. Watching the first 15 minutes or so and you'll feel ripped off, horrible acting, dubbing, dialogue, a complete lack of a coherent plot, and no budget whatsoever. The movie was probably made on less than a thousand bucks, most of which probably went towards the director's speed habit. More often than not, it seems like their just making it up as they go. Then all of the sudden it goes from one of the worst horror movies I've ever seen, to one of the best I've ever seen - very dark and very brutal. The characters, who are set up as a bunch of pathetic rejects at the beginning, transform into a ritualistic cult of killers. The change is unexpected, and the movie becomes like a nightmare – full of unexplained symbols and general feeling of dread. The sound track and camera work start to give the movie a real eerie presence, and then people are sadistically murdered one by one. In a way it's like combining Fulci with Kubrick, but then again a lot of it is like nothing I've ever seen before. The main character Terry, a Charles Manson-like figure (played by the director/writer Roger Watkins) is pure evil. He's completely disgusted with humanity, and kills out of fun, anger, ritual, and maybe profit – since the group has a camera man filming it as snuff. This was made in the early 70's, predating the majority of snuff-themed movies. Littered throughout are bizarre and memorable scenes, the surgery scene, the deer hoof scene – this stuff you've got to see it to believe. For the last 20 or so years, this movie has been all but impossible to come by, no one even knew who made it sense the credits are all made up. But a couple years ago it was released in an amazing double disk DVD with tons of extras and background info – definitely worth the hefty price tag.
Reviewed by: Ravenous, added November 05 2004
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