After CANNIBAL HOLOCAUST this is the most extreme film ever made by Italy’s Ruggero Deodato. 1980’s HOUSE ON THE EDGE OF THE PARK (LA CASA SPERDUTA NEL PARCO) is a film whose intentions are announced in the pre-credits opening, in which the late David Hess (1936-2011), recognizable from his roles as heavies in LAST HOUSE ON THE LEFT, HITCH-HIKE and SWAMP THING, runs a woman (played by Hess’s real-life spouse Karoline Mardeck) off a freeway, then rapes and strangles her to death in the back seat of her car.
After CANNIBAL HOLOCAUST this is the most extreme film ever made by Italy’s Ruggero Deodato.
Hess plays a New York City mechanic named Alex (there’s much verite footage of NYC to establish a sense of place, even though the film was lensed in Italy), who together with his co-worker Ricky invites himself to a party being held in a posh home after two of the attendees have car trouble that lands their vehicle in Alex’s garage. The five person soiree consists of three ladies and two guys, who act quite snooty toward Alex and Ricky. Following a bout of dancing (to some really shitty disco music) Alex is teased unmercifully by an especially haughty partygoer, who gets him to strip and then leaves him standing naked in a shower.
His unsavory instincts aroused, Alex quickly turns the party into a debauched torture-fest, beating up the two guys and unveiling a straight razor. He proves quite adept with said razor as he and Ricky subject their five—which become six after a young woman unwisely knocks on the door and joins the festivities—charges to every imaginable indignity, and the film turns into a warped variation on THE DESPERATE HOURS (1955).
The major difference between that film and this one is that all the characters in HOUSE ON THE EDGE OF THE PARK are monstrous to some degree, making it difficult to sympathize with any of them. That includes Ricky, upon whom Alex eventually turns his sadism, and Alex himself, who in the final scenes inevitably finds himself on the receiving end of the torment.
An early shower scene contains what must be counted as the most evocative use of a pane of glass since THE BIRD WITH THE CRYSTAL PLUMAGE…
HOUSE ON THE EDGE OF THE PARK, it must be said, amassed a fair amount of popularity on the 90s bootleg VHS circuit. The pic is now legally available (in a remastered DVD from Media Blasters), and proves to be, contrary to what many sleaze-meisters might have you believe, not a very good movie. It’s under conceived and repetitive, with very little of note outside the violence and sleaze, although it does contain some inspired moments (obviously, it being an Italian exploitation movie, allowances will have to be made for the horrendous dubbing job and consistency-free performances by actors of varying nationalities). An early shower scene contains what must be counted as the most evocative use of a pane of glass since THE BIRD WITH THE CRYSTAL PLUMAGE, and Alex’s climactic slow motion plunge into a swimming pool achieves a sense of delirium worthy of Ken Russell. Hess proves to be the film’s major asset, showing (not for the first time!) that nobody else could play a heavy quite like he. While he may have a tendency to indulge in common-place sneering and glowering, Hess exudes a profound sense of menace, coupled with a quintessentially 1970s sleaziness (note his curly hair and unbuttoned-at-the-top shirt). This film is, again, pretty bad in most respects, but with the sorely-missed Hess in the lead it’s not that terrible.
See Also: CANNIBAL HOLOCAUST AND THE SAVAGE CINEMA OF RUGGERO DEODATO
Vital Statistics
HOUSE ON EDGE OF THE PARK (LA CASA SPERDUTA NEL PARCO)
F.D. Cinematografica
Director: Ruggero Deodato
Producers: Franco Di Nunzio, Franco Palaggi
Screenplay: Gianfranco Clerici, Vincenzo Mannino
Cinematography: Sergio D’Offizi
Editing: Vincenzo Tomassi
Cast: David A. Hess, Annie Belle, Christian Borromeo, Giovanni Lombardo Radice, Marie Claude Joseph, Gabrielle Di Giulio, Brigitte Petronio, Karoline Mardeck, Lorraine De Selle