Raping, torturing and executing. Sweetly.
Scant months after Ruggero Deodato gave the world an unsuspected blow with the release of his seminal cannibal film, Cannibal Holocaust, he followed it with a second gut punch, one to knock out even the most endurent of horror fans. House on the Edge of the Park is a surprising home invasion film that flaunts its assets the way any exploitation film should, including charismatic lead David Hess, gorgeous porno actress Annie Belle, and an over-abundance of breasts and blades as well as genuine moments of tension.
Simple, effective, somber: one of the best
horror film poster from the 1980s
From the gutter to the stars
The film opens with a rape scene meant to characterize evil protagonist Alex in all of his inhuman depravity. Although this scene might seem tame by today's standard, you get the point, namely that Alex is a reckless beast who will do anything to satisfy his immediate urges. When he reappears onscreen, combing his thick curly hair in anticipation of a night on the town with his buddy Ricky, you know the pair is up to no good. Discussing their plans in the crass locker room adjacent to Alex's auto repair shop, they are disturbed by the apparition of a bourgeois couple who requests help fixing their car in exchange for two invitations at an exclusive get-together in a roomy New Jersey house (on the edge of a park). Enticed with seductive Lisa, whose short hair conceals an eminently feminine body, the two grease-monkeys have no hesitation. So they follow their newfound friends like a pair of sheep guided by the shepherd, over-confident in their ability to physically overcome their hosts, should the need, or the desire, arise.
Following a short drive from Manhattan to New Jersey, the foursome reaches a sumptuous villa filled with extravagant furniture where three more socialites are mildly enjoying themselves. But the real party begins only once Alex and Ricky start infusing their own sense of fun in the proceedings. When friction arises due to various frustrations endured by the two bums, including failed attempts at seduction and poker shenanigans orchestrated by the cheating bourgeois, violence overwhelms the scene. Alex takes everybody hostage thanks to his nasty-looking razor blade and volatile fists, taking care of the entertainment for the remnants of the runtime. Interested only in his own sense of sadistic amusement and fueled by the apparent helplessness of his victims, he dubs himself master of the house, submitting the hosts to his will. Following on his initial objective to find a girl for his loveless friend Ricky (who, contrary to what many reviewers have said, is not retarded), he lets him have the first pick of women. The only problem is: he has to fuck her in front of everybody in order to prove his manhood. Unwilling to do so, Ricky argues with Alex, thus proving the reigning dissension among the two friends stemming from his good nature. You see, Ricky wants to have fun, just as Alex does, and he wants to be liberated from the constraints of mundane life. But he doesn't necessarily fancy violence as a way to achieve this goal, clashing with Alex on this issue when grazing scraps of courage inspire him, but mostly doing his biddings by fear of violent retaliation. Clearly, he is the weakest link in the chain fastened around the quintet of victims waiting for an opportunity to strike back and put their own twisted plan into action. Taking everybody by surprise, the apparition of a pretty young woman named Cindy complicates the elaborate game of cat and mouse played out between the cunning bourgeois and their unsuspecting oppressors. Caught in the crossfire, virginal Cindy is the unblemished Lamb of God sacrificed to wash away the sins of all the sodomites and murderers contained in the cozy New Jersey homestead. Her martyrdom is crucial in creating the affect necessary to set up the final act.
The breast is mightier than the blade
Relying mostly on David Hess' commanding presence in the main role, the film puts the viewer between a rock and a hard place, making it impossible to condone his repulsive brand of anti-social violence, but making it hard to resist his boyish charm at the same time. Alternating addictive good humor and psychotic outbursts of brutality, Hess perfectly captures the bipolar nature of his character, giving a classic performance that comes just short of Arno Frisch's genius take as the nihilistic home invader from Michael Haneke's original version of Funny Games. Unlike that latter film, which is a harrowing psychological ordeal from beginning to end, House relies on humor to soften the moments of tension, creating a strange atmosphere of attraction-cum-repulsion that befits the character of Alex very well and allows us to question our own involvement in the process of enjoying the spectacle, much like Cannibal Holocaust had done earlier that year. Most of all, it helps depict the reigning nihilism of our times, which makes us act as Alex does, out of immediate titillation and short-sightedness. Contrarily to their bourgeois hosts, him and his friend merely follow the flow of events, reacting to their environment the way animals would. This is at once their most fearsome feature and most obvious shortcoming.
Thanks to her overwhelming femininity,
Lisa always has the upper hand on Alex
Faithful to the film's contradictions, Alex and Ricky appear to be remorseless rapists and careful gentlemen all at once. The truth of the matter is that they are no more than teenagers suffering from hormonal imbalances and a boyish lack of self-confidence. If you consider Alex's deference to Annie Belle's Lisa, you will uncover the tip of a reality far more complex than the simple victimization of women prevalent in American slasher films. The shower scene is well orchestrated in that regard. Deodato's use of transparent surfaces as a way to isolate Alex and Lisa in tantalizing fashion, the overwhelming presence of Belle's assertive body and commanding attitude all concur to expose not the exploitation of Lisa by Alex, but vice-versa. After all, it is he who kneels before her, it is he who is forced to disrobe and given nothing in return but a fairly prude scrub of Lisa's back. The role reversal taking place a in later scene wherein the two finally have at it is merely a way for Lisa to give Alex the illusion of control, sacrificing her body for an authoritative edge over the lowly bum. If you really care to look at the film, you will notice that it is almost feminist in its depiction of inter-gender relationships. Sure, it features an abundant number of naked breasts, and one hell of a nasty semi-rape scene. But narratively, it shows female dominance, showcasing dim-witted, testicle-driven men and controlling women who use the lure of their bodies as a way to slowly gain control of the situation, taking advantage of men's predictable sexual appetite and violent, but reckless desire for domination as a way to master their actions. It works surprisingly well over the course of the film, creating a linear path for Alex and Ricky to follow and eventually fall into a trap they could've expected, were they not so obsessed by the dictates of their hormones.
Given a feminist framework of analysis, the role of Cindy becomes entirely problematic. Submitted to repulsive tortures, including hymen probing, forced undressing and razor blade slicing, the young woman seems like an overdetermined female victim and the object of the most vile male fantasies. Her lengthy ordeal is shown in gruesome details that will make you shiver, relegating to bottomless depths any hint of female empowerment. However, as I mentioned earlier, her presence in the New Jersey villa is entirely unexpected. Therefore, she is not part of the female triumvirate made up of Lisa, Gloria and Glenda, and not meant as a vengeful alpha female. She is rather a necessary casualty in the never-ending war between sexes and classes. Her accidental presence in the nourished crossfire makes her both a victim of the brutal male aggressors and the scheming bourgeois who have unleashed their fury.
Poker face
Using but two distinctive sets, the crass garage where Alex works and the large New Jersey home of the partying socialites, the film features not only a battle of the sexes, but a struggle of classes. Right from the start, Alex and Ricky stick out of the sophisticate crowd like a pair of sore thumbs. Their obvious lack of refinement, epitomized by Alex's ridiculously tasteless yellow suit and crude manners, offers a sharp contrast with the trendy interiors and subtle mannerisms of their hosts. They don't belong amidst the other guests, and so they are the first to be exploited. Scant moments after his arrival, Ricky is humbled by the aristocratic charm of the well-put ladies greeting him. Encouraged by cheerful clapping, he performs a very clumsy strip-tease for them, delighting the men at the same time with his eager candor. Alex watches with annoyance as his friend sheds more and more clothes to entertain the conceited onlookers. "They're making a fool out of you" he tells Ricky, who couldn't care less, as long as he can secure the attention of three pretty girls. "He's enjoying himself", replies one of the girls as if the young man was in perfect control of the situation. Alex grinds his teeth, angered by what he considers abuse directed at his friend, and by extension, at all the poor looking at the rich for approval.
Ricky is having a great time. But Alex isn't.
Soon after the strip-tease incident, the hosts agree to a poker game with Ricky while Alex is unsuccessfully trying to hit on Lisa in the kitchen. Unbeknownst to Ricky, the rich also play poker, and they're pretty good at it, managing to rake in all of his money with opportunistic full houses and such other tricks. At some point, the young man needs to borrow his pal money in order to get beaten once more. Savvy to their hosts' trickery, Alex starts to lose patience and that's when he turns the table on them. Taking out his razor blade and throwing some punches, he manages to bend them to his will. By using violence to assert himself in the face of cunning, he falls into the trap set out for him, proving once more that violence is the last refuge of the incompetent. Feeling inadequate, both culturally and sexually, jealous of his hosts' high standing and access to superior women, he becomes a swiss-army knife of makeshift phalluses, using brutality as a way to conquer an environment that he perceives as hostile. Awaiting his outburst of violence with eager anticipation, his hosts revel in its unbridled expression, which makes Alex ripe for a vindictive, ritualistic execution. Acting as a petulant kid prone to follow his most immediate and most visceral desires, he becomes utterly predictable... and he is easily swayed by his hosts, who follow Lisa's example and simulate helplessness in order to exploit the vain macho pride characterizing Alex.
What the film outlines with insistence is the wide gap between classes, the unreconcilable distance between the sparkling white interiors of the bourgeoisie and the greasy underbelly of society, both of whom feed on the soiling of the other. Apparently, they are two solitudes living side by side. Yet, they find common ground in violence and the wanton desire to harm others in order to procure pleasure for oneself. The methods may vary, but the result is similar. Whereas the bourgeoisie exerts a more systematic, more indirect form of violence upon its victims, using manipulation to bind them, the poor and disenfranchised dish out a more visceral, more uncompromising assault on their hosts. Their violence stems from a childish desire of immediate appropriation whereas the bourgeois' comes from a warped sense of moral rectitude in the act of retribution. The wanting, the longing for material riches and high-standing that tears the poor apart is perfectly exemplified here, but so is the failure of any upheaval based on violence and degradation. Alex may want the socialites to dance to his tune, but in doing so, he falls right into their trap, doing exactly what they expected of him. What he considers empowerment is actually a transparent form of powerlessness. Not only is his brutality overdetermined and predictable, it never seems to give him any form of control over the situation (as exemplified by his constant mood swings and frequent tussles with Ricky). This is why he is neither a fearsome villain, nor a convincing leader. In reality, he acts more like a prey, using force as a primal reaction to conceal his impotence. The true predators are the bourgeois hosts, whose hypnotic stillness and patience eventually prevail. What this animalistic comparison goes to show is just how predatory relationships are not limited to lesser beings, and that while the expression of violence may stem from class unrest, violence itself is a classless reality uniting humans in our most basic, most reptilian instincts.
The sourness of sweets
One of Deodato's most efficient techniques to create unease in the viewer involves "spoiling the sweets", a process through which he uses images of innocence and virtue to create affect by transposing them in the realm of horror. Here, it is achieved through the soundtrack and the ordeal of young Cindy.
Much like he did with Cannibal Holocaust, Deodato uses Riz Ortolani's music as counterpoint to the action, denaturalizing his soft ballads to great effect by superimposing brutal acts of violence over the carefree notes, thus likening vicious murders to mundane acts of love. Considering the hard-edged images so gallantly thrown at us by the director, it's hard not to be subjugated by the sweet melody and candid lyrics from title song "Sweetly", which punctuates the screen at the most inappropriate moments, including the haunting finale. Breaking the walls of my resolve, the contradiction made me teether on the brink of tearful exasperation. Such a depiction of soiled innocence is almost sadistic in its cold execution, making us the subjects of a particularly effective aversion therapy. Childish innocence, it seems, will necessarily be engulfed by the brutality of adulthood. This is a somewhat traumatizing conclusion made by Deodato and it is one to shock the viewer much more the violence itself.
Listening to Ortolani's other original song, "Do it to me (once more)", a cool disco tune that seems equally out of place, I felt a different kind of unease submerging me. What the playful melody seemed to entail is a notion of careless fun consumed by two dancing lovers. Again, love is likened to violence in a frankly unhealthy storm of feelings competing for the hegemony of our mood. Once more, we are caught between a rock and a hard place, dancing carelessly to the horrified screams of tortured women, confronted by a ruthless brand of violence that seems to overwhelm sweetness in all of its incarnations. In the end, the torturous elements are not in the images themselves, they're in the desecration of beautiful things that the images entail. Only as such do they create optimal affect amongst tortured viewers.
When you need makeshift phalluses to impress virgins...
The film boasts many enduring images, paramount of which are Alex's ritualistic execution and the torture of virginal Cindy. I wouldn't say that the film is mean-spirited, but this latter scene is honestly hard to watch. The girl is an infant. Her lanky, pale body and tiny hands desperately crossed over her crotch make her an icon of childish helplessness. Everything else about her, including the thin pink lips, pale blue eyes and curly blonde hair pictured above, all contribute to her depiction as a fairy tale heroine fallen in the clutches of the big bad wolf. The ordeal she goes through is plainly disgusting. From the moment she enters the scene, Alex lavishes his entire attention on her. Upon probing her genitalia, his eyes light up as he joyfully boasts to have caught a virgin, a fact he will insist upon heavily in the following minutes. Just like the sadistic interplay of sweet love songs and repulsive death scenes, Alex's excitement over the rape of Cindy contributes to Deodato's souring the sweets, making beauty to be something entirely exploitable by evil, selfish interests, something that needs to be monstrously soiled. As the scene develops, Alex starts swinging the razor blade around, and like an impotent coward, he slashes Cindy's young skin in several places, drawing ungodly screams from her teenage throat, thus covering a beautiful canvas with painful scars. After that, Cindy's days of joyous candor will be gone forever, evaporated like the beautiful summer from "Sweetly" and we will be left to contemplate the void left by the brutal imprinting of violence on all things innocent and pure. And in the end, this is what makes the film horrific.
I wonder who the real cannibals are...
House is a stunning follow-up to the classic Cannibal Holocaust, questioning the nature of violence in an equally relevant way by using images that are just as morbid and memorable. Deodato's twisted kind of humor is back for a vengeance and the music of Riz Ortolani helps him once more to hammer his point home. The deep and intriguing relationships between characters and David Hess' commanding presence give it a slight narrative edge, which is easily overwhelmed by Cannibal's self-reflexivity. Yet, both films come highly recommended as affective meditations on violence.
3,5/5 A highly disturbing film fueled by traumatizing contradictions, intriguing subversions and a classic performance by David Hess.
