La casa sperduta nel parco

This film is one of the best made of the video nasties. Alex (David Hess) rapes and strangles a young woman in the back of her car before the credits start to roll. Soon after a young rich couple pull into their garage to see if they can fix their car. They agree but only if they can tag along to their party. After fixing the car Alex and Ricky (John Morghen AKA Giovanni Lombardo Radice) tag along. They spend the best part of the film terrorizing the 5 yuppies at the party. There's gore, torture and rape applenty. Hess is awesome as the crazed rapist and Morghen is equally great as the retard. This film is one you must see. The ending is truly amazing.

A psychopathic rapist and his simple-minded companion brutalize a group of wealthy young people. Starring David Hess and Giovanni Lombardo Radice (in his film debut).

Deodato calls this film a "mistake" made only "to satisfy the producers". He says the "screenplay was really poor". So, if you think the movie is a failure, you would be in agreement with its creator. For me, there was little offered beyond a few cute naked women.

Taking place in the disco era with the appropriate music and outfits, this is a truly odd experience. Somehow a Radice striptease comes into play here.. which is, um, interesting to say the least. And then you have people who realize they are going to get tortured, so rather than fight they just accept it...

Luca Palmerini sums up the film as a "listless remake of Last House on the Left. Boring." Of course, it is not a remake, though it was clearly influenced by "Last House" and adding David Hess to the cast only calls that to our attention. Jim Harper calls the plot "paper-thin" and the characters illogical. Harper also believes the film "goes too far" in its treatment of rape. This may be due to the script being written by Gianfranco Clerici, who also wrote "New York Ripper" and "Nazi Love Camp 27", among others.

I cannot pretend to defend the shakey moral foundations that this film rests on; that said I love the rather thin output of Ruggero Deodato. His flick "Live Like A Cop, Die Like A Man" is one of the best of the Italian Violent Cop Thrillers of the seventies... his Cannibal Holocaust is notorious all over the world, but of the Italian Cannibal flicks of the early eighties sub genre, it's rather well made and acted - for what it is. This is sloppy, like all of the Italian sleaze directors U.S films are (particularily Umberto Lenzi), but it has a sleazy charm despite all the chicks being no more than rape magnets. Gotta love David Hess' acting work from this period too; the guy is, um, unique looking, to put it kindly. Check out his website, he takes himself soo-oo seriously; do all actors think they're artists?

David Hess became semi-famous in horror circles for his performance in Wes Craven's overrated 70s relic "Last House on the Left." Untalented Italian directors took notice and decided to repeat formula in several sleazy and downright inept exploitation films such as "Hitch Hike" and this musty, steaming pile of excrement. Here David gets to stretch his acting muscles (no, not really) playing an all around greasy bloke named Alex, who might as well be named Krug 2.0. Alex is having a slow night at the auto shop where he works and decides to spice up his evening by terrorizing a bunch of uptight yuppies at a remote house. He also has a semi-retarded accomplice (Giovanni Lombardo Radice aka John Morghen) who helps him out for awhile before growing a backbone. There's less violence than you might expect, but plenty of tasteless scenarios and nudity provided by sleaze regulars Annie Belle and Lorraine De Selle. The dialogue and plot are incredibly stupid, the acting is terrible and the music is ear-splitting then-trendy disco but behind all the raunch is a twist to the story. A pathetic twist only the most gullible would buy into, but a twist nonetheless.

I've actually been searching for this film for ages. They sure won't sell it in the UK, so the best place is the internet. Alas, no joy. Without using a credit card (I'm not old enough to have one), it seemed like this notorious video nasty was never going to be added to my collection.

Then, on a trip to Paris, I wander into a video store, and what do you know? There are two copies of it, tucked away in a box half pushed under the bottom shelf. And it was in English too. I mean, do we put that down to fate, or what?

I'd already watched Last House on the Left, and so was familiar with David Hess, and the character he portrayed (who, let's face it, was just a re-named Krug). Even so, I wasn't prepared for the graphic nature of this film. Last House on the Left actually turned out to be a lot less graphic than I'd expected, and I'd even got the uncut version. Since both films fall into the same genre, I was expecting this to be somewhat similar in terms of content. Oh man, was that a mistake....

The most repugnant moments in this film are unmatched, and I suspect they will only be surpassed by Cannibal Holocaust/Cannibal Ferox. Acting was somewhat dire to begin with, but did seem to pick up as the film went on. Also, the numerous scenes of rape were never distasteful in their own right. Last House on the Left kept flicking back and forth between a rape scene and a comedy scene, which is distasteful in the worst sense. Yet in this, the rape was never glamourised, it was never presented as anything other than rape, and it was never short of gruelling (or graphic).

Plot? Well, there is one, but it doesn't truly unfold until the end. I must confess that, for someone who successfully predicted the ending of Se7en, I never saw the plot twist coming. But I agree with a lot of the comments on here. The characters at the party were in the large part, very unlikeable, and I ended up hoping Alex would murder them all, which I don't think was the desired effect.

Still, if this is your cup of tea, then you want to make getting this film a priority. It's only going to become and and more rare as time gets on. And they don't make them like this anymore...

Caution advised: Content is extreme.

7/10 - For all its faults, it's very powerful stuff. I lent it to three people in the first week I purchased it.