Last House on Dead End Street (1977)

Providing more red meat for deranged moviegoers who patronized the previous year’s theatrical release Snuff, this abysmal horror picture is yet another low-budget exploitation flick purported to contain footage of real killings. Like Snuff, this craven enterprise went through a few developmental stages before becoming the atrocity that reached theaters in 1977. Originally released in 1974 as The Fun House, with a running time of three hours, the flick was whittled down to 78 interminable minutes and retitled to echo the moniker of Last House on the Left (1972), another grungy shocker designed to test viewers’ endurance. As for the various descriptions of Last House on Dead End Street as a surrealistic horror film, the picture is indeed weird, but not because of deliberate artistry—bad taste and cinematic incompetence are the reasons behind the film’s strange vibe. Long stretches feature characters wandering around while disembodied voices provide their interior monologues, and equally long stretches comprise excerpts from softcore porn, since several of the characters are in the business of making adult films. The overall gist is that a psychopath named Terry Hawkins (played by director Roger Watkins under a pseudonym) decides to make snuff films so he can earn money selling his products to depraved clients. Kinkiness ensues. In the climactic scene, a woman strips off her top, then places an animal hoof in the crotch of her jeans and forces a man to fellate the hoof until someone else kills the guy by burrowing the bit of a power drill into his skull. All the while, Terry/Roger films the carnage and laughs hysterically. It’s not enough to say that one hopes the people who made this film eventually got professional help. Similar assistance should be provided to anyone unfortunate enough to actually watch Last House on Dead End Street.

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