House on the Edge of the Park

You would expect that a movie that brought together Ruggero Deodato (Cannibal Holocaust), David Hess (Last House on the Left) and Giovanni Lombardo Radice (Cannibal Ferox) would surely be the recipe for one of the most outlandish movies ever...but was it.

'House on the Edge of the Park' is set in the back end of the disco years of the seventies (which is laughably portrayed by both lead David Hess' snazzy suit and Riz Ortolani's over acclaimed score) where street wise garage mechanic and erstwhile rapist Alex (played by Hess in his own trademark style) gatecrashes an out of town party held by some retro yuppies with his happy go lucky pal Ricky (played by the legendary Radice). Realising early on that their wealthy hosts are actually laughing at them (and not with them) Alex reacts in the only way he knows how...raping, assaulting and generally striking terror into the proceedings, in a dumb ass exhibition of machismo that Hess (in his previous role as Krug in Last House) can do only too well.

Mean assed, shocking and at times highly amusing - 'House on the Edge of the Park' actually is one underrated key films of the genre scene. Even before the opening titles kick in Deodato lays down the grounding for what to expect with a graphic rape Hess inflicts on a passing female driver and once the basic premise is out the way he plunders your senses with an endless barrage of graphic terror. Like 'Ferox' did for the cannibal scene, 'Edge' takes all that's nasty from its predecessors (Straw Dogs, Day of the Woman et al) and packs it all into one movie like a greatest hits collection of humiliation (and showing Deodato to be more of an influence on future filmmakers than folk realise once again - whilst Holocaust undeniably lays heavy on Blair Witch, Edge shows his influence on folk like Paul Verhoen and his similarly exploitative Showgirls).

But what of the disc from EC Entertainment? Well, whilst many have mumped and groaned about this particular release I was surprised to find that when I did eventually get to view it I found that although not great it really wasn't as bad as I had been led to believe (can I have my cash now EC? only joking folks!) Yes of course, it is not the best disc EC have brought to our attention but its not the atrocity that we've been hearing about. The picture is sadly not pin sharp and the colour not as solid as I would have liked it to be. But, you get what you pay for and I've also noticed a growing trend for some of our poor US readers that are missing out on some image level when viewing Pal discs on modified NTSC sourced players which is most likely the cue for some Pal releases coming under fire more so than usual.

That said though, I did in fact start to worry in the opening stages about the print used itself but I soon settled down to what was a reasonable viewing experience. The truth of the matter is that whilst we would love to see films like this get the true Special Edition experience I don't see Anchor Bay tripping over themselves to get a title like this out (though we can keep hoping). And yes, the disc has the film and that's all - no interviews, no gallery, not even a trailer - EC say that time and demand dictated this so who knows, maybe in time (like their earlier remastered House by the Cemetery re-release) we can hope for a full blown remastered version.

But I digress, the films a classic and the disc is just 'ok' - it's up to you, buy the disc or wait indefinitely in hope that it will reappear elsewhere. I know what I did and I have no regrets, check it out.

Review by Alan 'easy pleased' Simpson