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Showing posts with label Ruggero Deodato. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Ruggero Deodato. Show all posts
The Grim Reaper is transparent and brandishes a razor knife on this poster for Ruggero Deodato's The House on the Edge of the Park
Alex and Ricky are two degenerate auto-mechanics in New York, who go with a pair of women to a party in New Jersey, where they take the guests hostage, torture and rape them.
The House on the Edge of the Park is written by Gianfranco Clerici (Miami Golem (1985)) and Vincenzo Mannino (The Antichrist (1974)) and directed by Italian master filmmaker Ruggero Deodato (Fenomenal and the Treasure Tutankamen (1968)). It is his 13th feature.
Deodato has a certain style, and the eerily contrapuntal music (by Riz Ortolani (Killer Crocodile (1989))) quickly puts the viewer in the filmmaker's shadow land (as his hostages?) The question is whether this place is horrific, arousing, and/or suspenseful?
Certain scenes of the film are truly sadistic, and yet The House on the Edge of the Park is miles away from the horrors of Deodato's preceding masterpiece, Cannibal Holocaust (1980). David Hess (The Last House on the Left (1972)) is frightening as an ultra-psychopath, and so is Giovanni Lombardo Radice (The Soul Keeper/Prendimi l'Anima (2002)) as his psycho chum. SPOILER The film's ending is grotesque: All the guests seemingly let themselves be tortured, just so they in the end can take their revenge...!
Listen here to 26 minutes of Ortolani's original score for the film
Cost: Unknown
Box office: Unknown
= Uncertain
[The House on the Edge of the Park was released 6 November (Italy) and runs 91 minutes. Deodato has said in an interview that his initial thought about the script was that it was "too violent." The filmmakers reportedly wanted Hess so much for their central villain part that they offered him half the rights to the film. Shooting took place in September 1979 in New York and in Rome, Italy. Details as to the film's cost and box office gross are regrettably scarce online. It did enrage the harsh British censors, who rejected it and put it on their 'video nasties' list, when they discovered in 1981 that it had been released on video in the country nonetheless. It was allowed a heavily cut release there in 2001, losing 11 minutes, and finally in 2011 with only about 40 seconds missing. Since 2011 a sequel titled The House on the Edge of the Park: Part II with Deodato and Radice involved has been 'in development'. Deodato returned with Atlantis Interceptors/I Predatori di Atlantide (1983). Hess returned in Jacqueline Susann's Valley of the Dolls (1981, miniseries) and theatrically in Swamp Thing (1982). 5.1k+ IMDb users have given The House on the Edge of the Park a 5.8/10 average rating.]
What do you think of The House on the Edge of the Park?
+ Best Horror Movie of the Year + Best Gore Movie of the Year+ Best Exploitation Movie of the Year + Best Comeback Actress of the Year: Heather Matarazzo
Heather Matarazzo is caught upside down in an undeniably terrifying state of helplessness on this appropriately nasty poster for Eli Roth's Hostel: Part II
3 young women are lured to take a detour on their European interrail vacation from Rome to Slovakia, where they become victims of a clandestine society of upper class torture and murder patrons. Hostel: Part II is written and directed by great Bostonian filmmaker Eli Roth (Cabin Fever (2002)), a sequel to his thrilling Hostel (2005), in which three male tourists experience the same type of grueling reception in Eastern Europe. Part II tops the wicked first film as an evil, grim and staggering work of exploitation horror. Although the film by no definition of the word could be said to have a star cast, it does have a super cast: Stand-outs are Heather Matarazzo (Scream 3 (2000)), SPOILER whose death by scythe must rate as among the sickest movie death scenes in recent history, - unforgettably sadistic, - and Richard Burgi (Fatal Instinct (2014)) as a grotesque businessman. Horror fans will also appreciate Italian master filmmaker Ruggero Deodato (Cannibal Holocaust (1980)) in a cameo as an Italian cannibal, naturally. Hostel: Part II is a refreshingly inhumane, hardcore gore horror classic.
Watch a terrific teaser for the film, introduced by Eli Roth SPOILER from the set of Matarazzo's death scene here
Cost: 10.2 mil. $ Box office: 35.6 mil. $ = Box office success (3.49 times the cost) [Hostel: Part II premiered 7 June (Australia, Argentina and Slovakia) and runs 94 minutes. Shooting took place in Iceland, Slovakia, the Czech Republic, including Prague, and Monaco from November 2006 - January 2007. SPOILER Bijou Phillips (Black Limousine (2010)) has explained that her scalping death scene required around 45 camera setups, and that her experience on the film made her lose interest for doing more horror. SPOILER Matarazzo completed the shooting of her upside down nude death scene without a stand-in, hanging for 5 minute intervals during the two days the scene was shot. The film opened and peaked #6 to an 8.2 mil. $ first weekend in North America, (less than half of the first film's #1 19.5 mil. $ opening), grossing 17.6 mil. $ (49.4 % of the total gross). The film's 2nd and 3rd biggest markets were the UK with 3.5 mil. $ (9.8 %) and Germany with 2.1 mil. $ (5.9 %). The release encountered resistance of many types: Its meat-themed poster above was removed from US theaters after complaints. It was released cut in Germany, Singapore and Malaysia and banned outright in New Zealand. In UK's House of Commons in 2007, having stills from the film was cited as illegal, an offense of 'extreme pornography'. Worst for the film; a pirate version of it leaked online days before the release and was downloaded millions of times, which Roth blamed for the less impressive box office, compared to the first film's 80.5 mil. $ world gross. Roth returned with short Stolz der Nation (2009), featured a clip of in Inglorious Basterds (2009), which Roth also co-starred in, and with an episode of Hemlock Grove (2013, TV-series), which he also executive produced (2013-15), before he returned theatrically with The Green Inferno (2013). Hostel: Part III (2011) by Scott Spiegel was the much inferior straight-to-DVD so far last film in the Hostel franchise. Hostel: Part II is rotten at 44 % with a 5/10 critical average at Rotten Tomatoes.] What do you think of Hostel: Part II?
Classic poster for Ruggero Deodato's Cannibal Holocaust
QUICK REVIEW:
A documentary crew heads into the Amazon jungle to film the gruesome practices of indigenous tribes there. Their material is brought back without them and screened in the station HQ in New York, where the disturbing material prompts ethical questions. It is completely understandable that Cannibal Holocaust has the much debated place in film history that it has. It is a completely gruesome, extremely real film and undoubtedly the best cannibal exploitation gore movie ever made. The film is a shocking study in human inhumanity, and a biting critique of modern media standards and modern civilization in general, which is depicted as depraved and uncivilized. It is an electric, hard-to-watch and strange film, and also the film that invented the found-footage format that has later spun a legitimate (mostly horror) sub-genre. This controversial masterpiece is directed by great Italian director Ruggero Deodato, who had previously directed the very good cannibal movie Last Cannibal World/Ultimo Mondo Cannibale (1977), and who also in 1980 released the eerie rape-and-revenge horror The House on the Edge of the Park.
A still of the infamous impalement scene, which Deodato had to subsequently prove in court had not been accomplished by actually impaling an indigenous woman. The photographing man on the right I believe to be Robert Kerman, the pornstar/actor, who also starred in Umberto Lenzi's inferior cannibal movie Eaten Alive! (1980)
Cannibal Holocaust was banned in Italy shortly after its release, and Deodato was prosecuted and had to prove that his actors had not actually been eaten in the film, which he did. He, the producers, screenwriter and United Artists representative was, however, convicted of obscenity and violence and given a four month suspended sentence. Deodato struggled for years to have the Italian ban lifted, which it finally was. Marketing of the film has stated that it has been banned in 50 nations, which is a dubious fact, but it certainly has been in many, and many countries have only recently lifted their bans. Besides visceral rape, murder, torture and cannibalistic scenes, it is especially the scenes of real animal deaths that have outraged people. In total there are 6 animal deaths on screen in the film. Cannibal Holocaust has two unofficial sequels, and Deodato has been wanting to make his sequel for years, but hasn't found funding. Instead, young, American horror maestro Eli Roth (Hostel (2005)) has now made The Green Inferno (2014), the first real new cannibal movie in ages, without a doubt with much inspiration from Deodato's classic. The posters for this crazy, strong film don't trick anyone into seeing it unknowingly, as you see here:
Watch an old trailer for the enraged, (for some audiences enraging as well), film here
Cost: 0.1 mil. $ Box office: Reportedly 2 mil. $ in 10 days before it was seized and banned in Italy alone = Huge hit What do you think of Cannibal Holocaust? Have you seen other Deodato films, and if so, what can you tell about them?
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