Chaos

Whoa, what can I say here. Well this has got to be the most over-hyped piece of garbage i've seen since Battlefield Earth. First off this film is a complete remake of Last House without the gritty revenge angle. I saw the full cut, so don't think all the negative reviews are for the edited version. Why Roger Ebert bothered with complaining about this film is beyond me, I mean any money this dud made was because of his comments. I really think if he never said anything, this film would have few to no reviews on here, and would have just faded away. The physical and mental torture in this film is disturbing by it's very nature Mr. Ebert, I mean what were you expecting from this storyline, but yet the scenes really lacked any edge, little actual gore is seen, and it certainly isn't a sexy film in any way, so really why see it? I knew exactly how things were going to turn out from the beginning, and not for one moment was I tense, or really interested in the proceedings. Maybe i'm just a jaded gore hound, but this film really has nothing to offer, and just makes you want to go back and watch Last House On The Left again to see how it's done right. A revenge plot would have helped greatly, just to add some unpredictability. All in all whether your looking for extreme gore, suspense, nudity, a good story, or acting, you will be disappointed. The only reason I gave it a two out of ten, is a few of the actors' seemed to have talent, they just had nothing to work with.

I viewed Chaos at the 2005 Flashback Weekend horror convention in Chicago. The Q&A session with the writer/director David DeFalco, producer Steven Jay Bernheim, and actor Sage Stallone was, strangely enough, before the film. After seeing the movie, I have a hunch as to why. DeFalco and Bernheim were very adamant at pushing this film as the "scariest and most brutal film ever," one of seemingly hundreds per year that reaches for that title. They then proceeded to bash the film they openly admitted influenced Chaos, Wes Craven's horror classic The Last House on the Left, calling it "unrealistic" and "hard to watch," to the point where there was an obvious change in the dynamic of the audience. Because DeFalco, who considers himself a "true horror fan," pushed so hard for people to like this film, I feel obliged to push the other way.

Chaos is by no means an original film. I've seen this movie made countless times with only slight variations on the plot. It does, however, have a few brutal, almost redeeming scenes that do make it worth seeing if you are a true "grindcore" or exploitation movie fan. Both of these, the first in particular, are what the movie will most likely be remembered by. They are both particularly well done, especially with the realistic looking blood and gore effects and the reactions of the female leads. This is, however, my last positive comment on the film.

Each character has been given a set of stereotypes that they must stick to, and none of them transcends their limitations. The girls in Chaos are as mindless as the girls in any other slasher or horror film, which is disappointing after hearing for half an hour about the "realism" of the movie. The police are the most generic characters in the movie, and the Sheriff's racism is extremely played out. Even the parents, an inter-racial couple that you'd think would be the least definable, stick to their stereotypes.

Chaos (the main "bad guy") and company are introduced in a completely unnecessary opening scene that does nothing but establish their characters as low-grade criminals. For a character that is supposed to come across as an example of the ultimate evil (he calls himself the devil at least once), Chaos is shown as a petty thief.

There are a couple inconsistencies in the plot, specifically timing issues. At one point, what seems to be a several minute walk for one group turns into a ten minute car ride for another.

Additionally, the ending feels entirely tacked on. I know that I wasn't the only person in the audience who laughed at the audacity of the director, after placing so much emphasis on realism, to include such a slapstick, somewhat comedic, ending.

In the end, I left the theater bewildered, but for all the wrong reasons. I usually am not so picky about "realism" in horror movies, but after hearing the director make such a point about it, I felt compelled to judge Chaos on it. I really want to believe that DeFalco has what it takes to make a good, original movie, because I saw potential in a few short moments. Unfortunately, after hearing the director speak so openly about this film as not only being his masterpiece, but set to trump The Last House on the Left, a film that has become a staple in any horror fan's collection... well, I'm not too hopeful that we're going to see anything too original from him.

Later this year will see the release of Eli Roth's Hostel, another film billed as the most brutal movie ever captured on film. Maybe a truly original "grindcore" film really is around the corner, but I'm not holding my breath.

There is no reason for anybody to see this film if they have seen LAST HOUSE ON THE LEFT. This film sucks! It starts with careless sensitivity to the characters and degenerates into a brutal and disgusting film with no real reason and no real point. The bulk of the dialog is misogynist or racist, the violence is way overdone, the torture is constant beyond the point of just being sickening and disgusting, and the long sequences where the victims try to get away are done with such a complete lack of a stance toward the value of human life and integrity or attention to detail that I really feel completely sorry for all the actors for having taken part in this film.

To call this a horror film would be a huge lie since the aspect of horror or suspense is lost within it's destructive scenes of two girls just begging to live. The girls' deaths are done in such a sickly, rough, and over-the-top style that the process of them dying is made overly complicated and egotistically unbalanced for the two girl's hope of living. By the time they are in the process of being killed, the thought of them still being alive leads to too many conflicts with the other characters watching as to whether they deserve to stay alive.

It is not an accomplishment for a film to do this. This destroys what "apparently" was the original supposed intention of the film was to be. A cautionary tale. It not only fails in these violet scenes, but also in changing the ending, the notion of revenge being successful or good is turned back on the characters.

This film is nothing but a wannabe shock film that fails because it doesn't have any interest in showing us what is shocking but rather telling us that it is shocking. Not recommended.

This movie already annoyed me before it even properly started… The first screen depicts a written message in which is stated that hundreds of girls get abducted and sexually abused every year, and that the producers of this movie wish to illustrate these crimes as graphic and realistic as possible in order to warn parents and potential victims about the dangers of meeting up with strangers. Seriously, shenanigans like these make me furious because A) you honestly don't need to show explicit rape footage and sadist murder in order to pass the message of kids having to be wary of strangers and B) it's 300% hypocritical! If you want to make a raw and shocking exploitation movie, that's perfectly fine, but don't pretend even for one second that cinema like this has a deeper social moral or an educational task to fulfill. Perhaps my rant is slightly exaggerated, but pretentious messages like that at the beginning of a film irritate me enormously! Furthermore, I honestly don't understand where all the commotion with regards to this film comes from. Some people (mainly the haters) call it a rip-off of Wes Craven's "Last House on the Left", whereas others (primarily the fans) refer to it as an unofficial remake of that same exploitation landmark. To me personally it's just another entry in the "rape & revenge" sub-genre of exploitation cinema that is admittedly a lot more similar LHOTL than most titles. Throughout the 1970s and early 1980s, and then once more in the years 2000-2010, there were dozens of movies cashing in on the success of LHOTL (and, ironically enough, Wes Craven stole the idea of Ingmar Bergman's "The Virgin Spring") so why would one more form a problem? The only significant difference that "Chaos" has to offer is that it goes another step further when it comes to depicting misogynous cruelty and repulsive murder. Two young girls, Emily and Angelica, have planned to go to a rave in the woods, much against the will of Angelica's mother. They arrive so early that the rave hasn't even started yet, so they tag along with a guy named Swam who claims that he has ecstasy in his cabin. They end up in the hands of Chaos and his accomplices. Chaos is a dangerously deranged psychopath and rapist, and the poor girls' final hours will be excruciating and miserable. Then, in good old LHOTL tradition, the rapists somehow end up at the parents' house and another violent confrontation ensues. Yes, the violence is sickening. What Chaos does to the white girl's nipple and especially how he kills the black girl is truly disgusting and will make even the most hardened horror viewer squirm in his/her seat. But let's not exaggerate, neither. "Chaos" is not the most depraved film ever made, even though I'm sure that is what writer/director David DeFalco likes to believe. Kevin Gage, who's biggest moment of glory was to appear in Michael Mann's "Heat" in 1995, gives a more than solid performance as the titular sicko Chaos, but in spite of that he will never grow out to become a cult/exploitation icon like Krug Stillo (David Hess) did after "Last House on the Left".

But that is still not saying much about this film. I'm not even sure where to begin. I guess I'll start with the "message" at the very beginning. As others have already said, it was a very lame attempt by the filmmakers to justify the content of their little film. Very lame. If you're gonna make a somewhat violent film about rape and murder, then just make the film and leave it at that. There was absolutely no reason to try and pretend that it was made as some sort of message to parents and kids about being safe from murdering rapists. They could have just said, "don't walk through the woods with a stranger while trying to score drugs" and not even bothered with trying to make a film out of it. While it is not the worst movie I have ever seen, or even the most disturbing for that matter, it is not worth watching either. I wouldn't recommend it to anyone. Some people can't resist the temptation to see what all the "controversy" is about (myself included), but I can assure you it's not as disturbing as some would have you believe and it's just not really worth the time. Pass.