DVD Reviews

LAST HOUSE ON DEAD END STREET
Also known as The Funhouse/The Cuckoo Clocks Of Hell
Directed by Roger Watkins as Victor Janos
1973 – 78 minutes/1.33:1 ratio
DVD provided by Barrel Entertainment

Reviewed by Michael Mackie

All right ladies and gentlemen, here it is - LAST HOUSE ON DEAD END STREET on DVD! Certainly this is one of the most infamous and sought after of all the cinematic bitch-slaps to come out of the 70’s. (And if you think on it a moment, that’s where a large percentage of them came from). It’s sort of a milestone that this thing is seeing the light of day at all. This film was literally considered lost and even if you could find an old Sun Video pre-record at a video store, well, you weren’t finding much. That print was nearly impossible to see; it was excruciatingly dark and out of focus, it had horrible, unmanageable sound and was difficult to sit through. Barrel’s new digital transfer is an eye-opener but I expect that there will be some mixed voices on this. More on that later. The uninitiated among you will surely be crying out for answers. “Well? Is it worth it? Does it live up to the hype? Is it everything they say it is?” To paraphrase from the movie: “You bet your ass it is.”

The credits are stark white over darkness with only a heartbeat thumping methodically in the background. A mood-setter, and an appropriate one. It all begins with one Terry Hawkins (Roger Watkins) wandering around the streets thinking to himself how wrongly he has been treated. Yeah, he spent a year in the state penitentiary for possession and dealing of “dangerous drugs.” He’s pissed and ready to take out his frustrations on society as whole if that’s what it takes to “show ‘em all.” Logically, help is needed to successfully express himself and help is what he gets. First he meets up with Ken, who has also done some time recently. Not for anything as simple as narcotics, no, he went the way of the wicker basket farmer because he was caught dorking a dead cow at the slaughterhouse where he was employed. “Ya’ know how horny ya’ get, huh? Ya’ know how horny ya’ get?” Yeah Ken, we know. Next, Mr. Hawkins gets a couple of chicks that are seemingly transient. They sit on the street discussing the nothings that they do and the void and inner-emptiness they feel. Don’t worry. Nobody is trying to remake Bergman here. After these two streetwalking philosophers are locked in it’s Bill, Bill the cameraman. Terry screwed him over once before, so there’s some tension there, but greed and the promise of creative freedom win out and Bill is in for the long haul.

There is a guy named Jim Palmer. Through a go-between named Steve, Jim sells z-grade porno films to the horny and affluent upper crust of society. This “organization” is tiring of the same old thing and craves something different, something really different. Enterprising entrepreneur that he is, he figures that maybe if he uses his dog in a few of the scenes that maybe… It’s no good though, just not enough. Steve insists that he needs that little extra punch or Jim will simply get tossed out of the loop. I think it’s really important to mention Jim’s wife here, Nancy Palmer. While these two sophisticated gents are discussing the ins and outs of pooch-porking in the den, Nancy is in the living room (during a party in full swing mind you) wearing blackface and getting punished by a mock hunchback with a bullwhip. Now that’s a party. Never mind the nine or ten year old that serves as the hunchbacks’ assistant; he’ll be hiding in the back, sniffing dresses perhaps. Where do the Palmers fit in? Ken met Nancy at a bar one night and had some rough sex with her (she’s into that) and suggested that Terry look up the Palmers knowing that they had these connections for selling unique forms of celluloid entertainment. Now they just need something to sell. Hawkins and his followers have seized (essentially) a huge, abandoned building far away from any troublesome distractions. There is a blind man who takes care of the place, lives there, whatever. Ken knows about it and says if they offer the occasional piece of ass (females, not themselves), everything will be okay and they’ll have no interference from him at all. How the heck does a blind dude maintain an abandoned… never mind. Time for the first shoot and Terry has been kind enough to offer the blind guy a shot at stardom. He’s tied to a post and being caressed by the two girls (Kathy and Patricia, incidentally) while Mr. DeMille stands off to the side wearing a Zardoz mask and giggling incessantly. Once the doomed and visually impaired victim is aroused, Terry steps in. “Then the caresses turn into something else,” he says. And they do. Terry strangles him to death but that’s okay, his career in film isn’t over yet.

This first effort goes over like gangbusters (“It looks so real!”), presumably, but Terry is convinced that Jim and Steve are taking credit for all the work and trying to cut him out of his share of the money. Both of the Palmers, Steve and one of the regular actresses that was used for the original films by Jim and Steve, Suzie, are lured to the building where the films are made, tied up with rope and hung from nails. It’s here that the film shifts and dives full force into its chaotic abyss. One by one, each victim, each star, is dealt their respective hand and man, it’s a rough ride. The remaining thirty or so minutes of L.H.O.D.E.S. are a disturbing and semi-psychedelic amassment of death, cruelty, psychological and physical torture, humiliation, hacksaws, degradation, maniacal laughter, dismemberments, disemboweling, hoof-felatio, rotting corpses and screaming, lots and lots of screaming.

Terry Hawkins and his group are portrayed, quite clearly, as Manson-esque. These are lost souls searching for a purpose, and Terry is giving them one. As dire and demented as that purpose may be, it’s still something for all of them to latch onto and run with. At times throughout all of these grim proceedings the entire group seems to share a singular collective awareness. It’s as though one knows what the other wants and is thinking at any given moment. They all have this abhorrent murderous intent and so powerful a thing is it within them, so singular is that unifying goal, that they become one mind without conscience. Their sinister actions create a thriving cult of pain and moral ambiguity. As frightening as Hawkins’ followers are, Terry is even scarier due to how coldly unrepentant he is. For him it’s a way to act out his pent up frustrations and put the world in its place. He goes about his slaughter with the attitude of an angry child and those around him sing and dance when not in the throes of homicidal ecstasy. What could be more fearsome than a man who doesn’t give a shit? That’s why this succeeds on all the levels that it does. It’s not something you can so easily leave behind when you put the DVD on the shelf. There’s a lot under the surface and in this way the film’s menace is effective and lasting. This bad mo-fo ain’t got a reputation for nothin’.

Many of the mysteries surrounding L.H.O.D.E.S. are addressed throughout the extras and it’s great to really clear the air. Yes, there was a much, much longer print (175 minutes) and no, we won’t be seeing that any time soon. This accounts for some of the holes within the narrative; and I am to be counted among those who feel that everything wrong about this is what helps make it so right. It all contributes to the off-kilter feel of everything, even the after-the-fact dubbing, which the director finds displeasing. Throughout the commentary Roger Watkins seems barely able to contain himself when discussing the thrashing that his work endured and even manages a little verbal celebration concerning the semi-recent suicide of one of the people responsible for the mishandling of the release. That may be a bit extreme but extreme is what it’s all about with everything that has anything to do with LAST HOUSE ON DEAD END STREET. The commentary with Watkins, accompanied by a certain Chas. Balun (appropriately), is lively and amusing. As much time as they spend having some laughs with the film, each other and Watkins’ (mostly negative) experiences with it, there is room a plenty for some great anecdotes about the making of this cruel “classick”. Some of the influences may surprise you. It’s one of the better commentaries I have heard in some time.

The print, which I promised to get back to at the top of the review, is going to be hard to accept for some and an amazing revelation to others. How can this be? No decent print of this has ever really existed before, not even theatrically. Therefore, some of us remember this as the video that wasn’t there. Those who have never seen LAST HOUSE ON DEAD END STREET before will be scratching their heads when confronted by all the raving some people are doing about this disc’s quality. Chas. himself summed it all up nicely towards the start of the commentary track when he said, “And horror fans, you’ll also be amazed at the fact that this movie is in color.” Some of us weren’t sure for a long time. The print does have some lines, scratches, jumps and mild blurring, but dammit, it looks great to me! Referencing the commentary yet again, it’s pointed out that some films, when cleaned up, lose a little of the atmosphere that the look of an old film can lend. I agree that this is sometimes the case and I also agree that this is, because of that reasoning, the perfect presentation of the film on DVD. That isn’t just meaningless justification, my friends. I really am quite pleased with this print. It maintains a level of detail I figured a film like this would never have, especially since it didn’t have it to begin with. The title is an obvious cash-in on LAST HOUSE ON THE LEFT, which was (just barely) completed first, though this didn’t see the glowing light of a projector until 1977, well after all of that massive re-editing and re-dubbing. The mono soundtrack is happily quite audible and makes all of the dialogue finally intelligible. There are some clicks and snaps throughout yet, again, I can’t help but defend the work that has been done. It is thought that the print used to create this DVD, on special loan from a private collector no less, may be the last remaining film element in existence. The disemboweling scene was missing and that’s ninety-one seconds! So rather than let it go, the scene has been re-instated from an extremely rare and uncut Sun Video print. The footage was color graded and matched as closely as possible and I for one am glad they went to the trouble. Yep, a lot of work went into turning this “lost” film into a worthwhile release and I applaud the efforts of everyone at Barrel Entertainment for making it happen.

Aside from the commentary, there is also a sixty-minute radio interview with Watkins and co-star Ken Fisher from February 14, 1973. Really interesting stuff and definitely worth listening to. There are nearly nineteen minutes of outtakes used from Watkins own 16mm work print. They appear to be all that remains of the 175-minute version entitled THE CUCKOO CLOCKS OF HELL. These scenes are presented with no sound. There is a trailer (which has got to be seen to be believed), a Necrophagia tribute music video directed by Jim Van Bebber (the director of DEADBEAT AT DAWN) and, finally, a ten minute segment from The Joe Franklin Show (circa. 1975) featuring Watkins and Paul Jensen (the blind man). Mostly Jensen, actually. He was promoting his book Boris Karloff And His Films, so the focus is generally on him. Man, that’s quite a lot of decent extras, don’t you think? And that’s only disc one.

The second DVD has four short films that Watkins shot throughout his youth. They’re silent but all have narration with Watkins and, in the case of Black Snow, Chas. is also on hand. Running times are anywhere from over three minutes to about twenty minutes. At Home With Roger Watkins is a seventy five minute collection of phone conversations recorded by Watkins himself as a sort of journal of the making of the film, mostly. Make sure to check out call number thirteen; it’s listed as “Minnie.” Pretty interesting stuff, for the most part, pulled together from over eight hours of conversations. There’s also a thing called 05-23-88. It’s the initial footage of a documentary about Watkins that was never finished. Last but not least, inside the case, there is a thirty-six-page booklet that features interviews and notes by many of the people involved with the production.

Well, there you have it. All contained in one neat, little package. They could have called it “Everything You Always Wanted To Know About LAST HOUSE ON DEAD END STREET But Didn’t Know Who To Ask!” and it would have been a fitting description of all that lies within. No, it isn’t a DVD you should be giving to the folks as an anniversary present, but for everyone who is already a fan as well as for those who might soon be, this grand special edition is the definitive release. Therefore, it’s highly recommended.