SnoReptilePlenty Memorable, crazy movie

CommentsXp Best movie ever!

BelSports This is a coming of age storyline that you've seen in one form or another for decades. It takes a truly unique voice to make yet another one worth watching.

Jenni Devyn Worth seeing just to witness how winsome it is.

bignothingdrake310 I am going to keep this one short because I really do not have much to say. This is one of the absolute worst movies I have ever seen in my entire life. I know that it is a cult favorite and usually I gravitate towards these types of movies, hell I liked The August Underground Trilogy, I enjoy movies like The New York Ripper and I even enjoyed Cannibal Cookout and I love exploitation films. I'm a huge fan of Jack Hill, his whole filmography is a huge part of what got me through high school. So I thought that I would have a blast with this one but it was just atrocious. The acting was horrible, absolutely horrible the performances here make The Room look like Oscar winning material, that by far is the worst part. The writing, I mean I'm not expecting Shakespeare what I am expecting at least some level competence but the dialog was so ridiculous and hackneyed oh my god, I can't decide which is worse the acting or the writing. It is laughably stupid, the dialogue is so ridiculous that even Dolemite would be embarrassed by it. It is actually very rare that I don't enjoy movies like this. I've been waiting to see it for years and now that I have, I want that hour and twenty minutes of my life back. This is retarded, plain and simple this movie is retarded. I don't know how it has found this large of an audience, it is just crap. If I could give it a zero star rating, trust me I would.

Mr_Ectoplasma In 1972, Roger Watkins filmed this macabre picture about a disgruntled ex-con named Terry Hawkins who decides to kidnap four people and, with the help of his "crew" of movie makers, film their murders inside an abandoned building-turned makeshift studio. Originally running at almost three hours long, the film was re-titled numerous times and the original cut became a lost film, leaving us with the 78 minute "Last House on Dead End Street" as we know it today.Quite frankly, this is maybe the most nihilistic film I have ever seen. It parallels works like Wes Craven's "Last House on the Left" in both title and grisliness, but it's about ten shades darker because, unlike in that movie, there is no subtle humor here to provide even the slightest relief; there is no safety in this film. Like many have said, the entire film plays out like a bad dream, and even worse than that, it's a bad dream that looks like a Manson family home movie. The narrative is basic, almost skeletal, but that's not really the point of the film— what we have here ultimately is a stylish exercise in unease and demoralization. The film was made, literally, on less than a thousand dollars (Watkins admitted he used a great deal of the film's budget to buy drugs), and amazingly is not brought down by its budgetary shortcomings.The photography in the film is apt and sometimes borders on surreal, with the camera following Hawkins and his group of hippie auxiliaries; armed with hand-held cameras, they don sinister translucent doll faces and oversized Zardoz masks as they gallivant through the abandoned building, torturing and killing their abductees. The self-reflexive murder scenes are indisputably the hallmark of the picture, and they are grotesque; drills, amateur surgeries, and branding sticks— need I say more? It is horrendous and shockingly realistic even today, so it's no wonder that it was rumored to be real thirty years ago.If the trippy visuals and macabre murder sequences aren't enough to perturb, the nightmarish sound design is. According to the director, the soundtrack and sound design was comprised of stock music and soundbites which were purchased for less than a hundred bucks from a New York sound company. Had I not been made aware of this, I would have never had a clue, because the sonic makeup of the film is actually quite sophisticated. Granted, the dubbing is not great (yes, the film was dubbed), but the haunting choral score and orchestral musical accompaniment add a whole other layer to the film. The expansive, ethereal ambiance that is evoked from the score is in sharp contrast with the claustrophobic world of grit, grime, and grisliness on screen, and the film packs even more of a wallop because of it; the eerie score is punctuated by borderline-Socratic voice overs from Hawkins as he audaciously affirms his convictions.Given the resources used to make this film, it truly is an incredible achievement. In spite of the dirt around the edges, it is well-made and almost spiritually disturbing, but above all else, it is an unusually insightful film that has more substance than one would expect or demand from an exploitation flick. "The Last House on Dead End Street" is perhaps the most unnerving and haunting film I have ever seen, bar none. It is a living, breathing nightmare; a meditation on death and power, and an exposition of depravity. 10/10.

Avinash Shukla Personally I don't like exploitation and snuff films. I feel that they are grim and upset the viewer and impair his ability to discriminate between humane and animalistic. 'The Last House on Dead End Street' was released 5 years after Wes Craven's depraved exploitation classic 'The Last House on the Left', but this one surpassed the record of depravity that Craven had set 5 years before. I don't like praising this movie for it made me upset and empty for many months, but I need to be true while reviewing it. As I watched this flick, I kept repeating 'This is just a movie'. I confess I didn't do this when I watched Craven's 'The Last House on the Left', which bore the aforementioned tag line. Although an amateurish effort by all means and produced out of a budget sufficient only to buy a few sacks of potatoes, this film will rule your senses forever and will haunt you in your dreams. The film doesn't pick up instantly and waits until the viewer has grown suspicious about the actions of the misanthropes and begins thinking 'What are they up to?'. Their questions are answered when the protagonist begins showing his true color which is as black as death itself!The film begins with Terry Hawkins (Roger Watkins, who closely resembles Quentin Tarantino), who has just finished his jail sentence for drug charges and is now looking for a new livelihood. He meets two cheese directors and now wants to try his hands with film making. Terry claims that he had earlier made few porn films but was unable to sell them. Terry and the directors want to try their hands with the new sensation of horror, Snuff films. They soon begin luring victims to a derelict and abandoned palatial building, where they are hacked, cut, drilled, decapitated, tortured, sawed and finally killed on screen. Their methods are so elaborate that they would definitely cause the viewers to puke on their nastiness. This goes on with several victims, until the viewers come to know that police had received a tip about their vicious and depraved deeds and they raided the place and arrested all the culprits and perpetrators.This might look like a documentary of a failed man, but you must see it yourself if you have the nerves to watch and forget this stuff. I say again, you may watch it, but it will live with you forever. The murders and slaughterhouse scene may induce nightmares and arouse abhorrence. Yes, the protagonist wants that you should hate him. This is a hate worthy film, but I can't give it 'zero' on the basis of my own dislike. May be it was hard for me to throw this film out of my mind, but its penetrative and lingering nature is certainly something that keeps this one infinite miles ahead of the modern stinkers like Fred Vogel's 'August Underground Mordum' and Nick Palumbo's 'Murder Set Pieces'. This film actually lets you dive deep into the mind of a depraved killer and answers some of the questions like 'How are they different from us? and 'What is his motive?''. Roger Watkins is the guy who hides behind the name Victor Janos and many other pseudo names that show on the performer/production credits. It's said that Roger Watkins had a planned budget of $3000 to make this film, but he spent more than $2,200 on amphetamines alone during the shooting and what remained was used to make the film. Unbelievable? Believe it!

Coventry Almost TOO sick and TOO depraved for words, this mean-spirited and hideously edited US exploit-flick! It might be called pure cult cinema with an enormous shock-value, still this questionable reputation can't hide the fact that "Last House on Dead End Street" is a nearly unendurable film and that you'll need at least three very long showers to wash away the dirty feeling after seeing it. All you ever read about this film is true. It's definitely a true statement that the on screen gore is ultimately gross and that the tone of the film is disturbingly nihilistic & offensive. Now, I don't have a problem with that (on the contrary, I even pro-actively search for this type of films), but I do think there should at least be a point to the violence or some sort of moral that needs to be made clear to the audience. "Last House on Dead End Street" has neither. It's just 80 harsh minutes of insane violence and nasty images of horrible looking set pieces. The plot is as simple as it is irrelevant, and handles about a misanthropist ex-con who mobilizes his former friends to help him make porn movies and earn some extra money. When he discovers that people are only interested in extreme shocks and snuff nowadays, the whole gang goes berserk and complete their film with the rich clients as real-life victims. The first half of the film is surprisingly dull and just plain awful, with some really amateurish attempts to provide the characters (that you couldn't feel less connected to) with a background and really ugly camera-work. The second half is full of gory sickness but still as awful as the first; perhaps even more so. During one of the most notorious sequences in horror-history, both a woman's legs are brutally sawn off while she's kept conscious with medication. The reason for that is that she can witness later how her stomach is cut open with a huge pair of pliers and how the intestines get removed and proudly shown to her. Sick enough for ya? "Last House on Dead End Street" could have been a truly nightmarish experience if everything (apart from the human guts) didn't look so damn fake! Especially the acting, but also the clumsy camera-work and lighting are so amateurish that it's nearly impossible to let this film affect you. Admirers (and, believe me, there are a lot of them) use the cheapness as an argument to claim that it only increases the genuine exploitation feel to it, but I strongly disagree. I've seen enough exploitation movies that are stylish and convincing DESPITE the limitations in budget. I wouldn't advise anyone to see this film (apart from some personal enemies, perhaps) but if your curiosity becomes too hard to resist, you can always purchase the brand new double-disc special edition on DVD. But do yourself a favor and wait at least three hours after you had dinner.