Chaos

While I must admit that the scenes of violence in this film are shocking and downright repulsive, it in no way makes up for the fact that, not only does David Defalco Blatantly rip-off Wes Craven's "Last House on the Left" with this HORRIBLE waste of film, but he then adds to this atrocity by openly and blatantly denying it and by actually slamming the original. Forget the fact that this film not only uses the same exact "It's only a movie" ad campaign and most of the scenes are almost frame for frame and word for word rip offs but then you can also add to it the fact that one of it's producers is Marc Sheffler, the man who played Junior in "Last House". AVOID THIS FILM AT ALL COSTS!

Chaos is a film that sets out to show evil, and it succeeds. It shows brutality, torture, death, and rape (in that order) via explicit imagery. Wait, though, because that's not a compliment. The filmmakers have hence patted themselves on the back and continue to congratulate themselves by constantly regurgitating "most brutal movie ever" with every other breath as if repeating it enough makes it true (it's not, and it won't).

Congratulations, you've shown evil … now what are you going to do with it, DeFalco? The answer is nothing. Thus, Chaos ultimately contains nothing beyond its desperate bid to shock its audience. And therein lies the reason not to see the film, and it gives me very little to criticize.

Imagine two grown men, purchasing a new computer, opening the box then declaring, "Mission accomplished. It's installed." What is an obvious step that's not worth the time of most intelligent human beings to mention since it goes without saying, is the stopping point for DeFalco and Bernheim (the director/producer of Chaos). Watch the featurettes on the DVD as these men persist that they've reached a revelation that any idiot figured out way back when Ingmar Bergman made Virgin Springs.

The film is essentially a carbon copy of Wes Craven's Last House on the Left with minor alterations (translation: this exploitation has already been exploited … where are the shocks again?) Girls go out, get involved with the wrong people, find themselves trapped, and suffer at the hands of monsters in human flesh -- and suffer greatly, they do. The two positive changes from Last House being: 1 a relevant title (but did we really need a character named "Chaos"? Oh wait, a Wrestler wrote this … nevermind) and 2 the police are no longer complete incompetent idiots. Bland, racist nobodies, sure.

The meaningless changes? Inconsequential details -- names, exact methods of torture and/or death, number of villains, races of the characters, a pointless new intro to the villains.

Now the negative changes: 1 - the opening crawl laughably out of place on this film, a film that actively seeks to exploit the sufferings of other human beings. Watching, I was reminded of a staple gag to the comedy genre -- you know, the scene where a character is warned in such extreme detail that the audience gets a kick out of said character's silent reaction. This film is that joke, and we are the characters being warned.

Negative change #2 – the film's ridiculous ending is another joke straight out of a comedy. After the Last House chainsaw moment, the father of the victim has Chaos at the business end of his shotgun. In bursts the cops! They raise their guns, issue a warning, and when the father refuses to respond they blow his brains out. After which the wife grabs a gun off one of the cops and shoots the sheriff. The deputy wrestles the gun away. Chaos picks up the father's shotgun and shoots the deputy, and he's in control again. I literally laughed out loud at this scene. Cut out the gore, and this could be a scene for the next Pink Panther film with Steve Martin.

As I said, the film sets out to show evil and, indeed, on the most shallow level evil things happen in the film, complete with effective gore that non-horror fans may have trouble stomaching.

According to DeFalco and Bernheim, that appears to be their entire agenda. To which, I would pose the question, "So, why should I get a picture of evil from you two, when I can go across the horror aisle and get better pictures of evil, more pictures of evil, along with some intelligent observations, commentaries, philosophies, artistic interpretations about said evils for the exact same price?"

Why would I want to buy a t-shirt from you two, when I can get a frickin' car from someone more intelligent?

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.

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.

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.