3 similar but different films. Two of which made by Italians. And one of which (HOTEOTP) has almost nothing to do with LHOTL aside from the casting of David Hess and having a similar title. Which of these 3 films do you like and why?
The young me would've gone with Last House purely because of it's status. But the older me notices the flaws of Last House that much more. The direction is pretty bad. No real style and it's not even point and shoot for the most part, it's verite. Verite doesn't really impress me because it's largely improvised and the philosophy is basically 'let's shoot it this way, let's shoot it that way, we'll figure it out in editing' and that's what verite is for the most part unless it's really elaborate in which case it's not really verite but staged verite. A good example would be the found footage in Cannibal Holocaust. The angels and movement were so important in that film and I don't get that impression from Last House.
Then you have the scenes with the cops... and an inconsistent pseudo zany tone with bits of humor with the fugitives and some questionable music by Hess. It's a miracle that the film worked at all considering. Why it works because of some amazing acting by the two teenage girls and Hess and Lincoln. Plus the violence works in the verite style, everything else in the film shot like verite -fly on the wall- style of filmmaking just doesn't work.
House on the Edge of the Park is a total 180 compared to Last House. The tone for one thing is totally consistent. Yeah, we can laugh here and there but when we do it's usually because of something witty spoken by Hess or Radice making an ass of himself, but this is intentional. Hess is charming and manipulative and sadistic. His character is so much more layered compared to Last House where's he's a typical rapist that tries to act suave but you can easily see through him. Not to mention the music is genuinely effective and disturbing, the acting is great all around, and the violence is probably more disturbing than Last House because it's so much more focused on the violence without any cutaways. I still would like to know if Hess' reaction to getting shot in the balls was supposed to be serious or not...
Night Train Murders. Another film that I think is better than Last House. It's not nearly as disturbing as Last House but that's subjective. I like it because it because it does something clever with it's treatment of good and evil. The villains were not some evil rapists who just wanted to rape and kill, they were just street kids who were coerced into doing something horrible. And it ends on that note and questions the almost black and white morality of Last House. I say almost because, yeah murder won't bring the girls back, but many would argue that it was completely justified. Unlike say when Sydow kills the child in The Virgin Spring.
The young me would've gone with Last House purely because of it's status. But the older me notices the flaws of Last House that much more. The direction is pretty bad. No real style and it's not even point and shoot for the most part, it's verite. Verite doesn't really impress me because it's largely improvised and the philosophy is basically 'let's shoot it this way, let's shoot it that way, we'll figure it out in editing' and that's what verite is for the most part unless it's really elaborate in which case it's not really verite but staged verite. A good example would be the found footage in Cannibal Holocaust. The angels and movement were so important in that film and I don't get that impression from Last House.
Then you have the scenes with the cops... and an inconsistent pseudo zany tone with bits of humor with the fugitives and some questionable music by Hess. It's a miracle that the film worked at all considering. Why it works because of some amazing acting by the two teenage girls and Hess and Lincoln. Plus the violence works in the verite style, everything else in the film shot like verite -fly on the wall- style of filmmaking just doesn't work.
House on the Edge of the Park is a total 180 compared to Last House. The tone for one thing is totally consistent. Yeah, we can laugh here and there but when we do it's usually because of something witty spoken by Hess or Radice making an ass of himself, but this is intentional. Hess is charming and manipulative and sadistic. His character is so much more layered compared to Last House where's he's a typical rapist that tries to act suave but you can easily see through him. Not to mention the music is genuinely effective and disturbing, the acting is great all around, and the violence is probably more disturbing than Last House because it's so much more focused on the violence without any cutaways. I still would like to know if Hess' reaction to getting shot in the balls was supposed to be serious or not...
Night Train Murders. Another film that I think is better than Last House. It's not nearly as disturbing as Last House but that's subjective. I like it because it because it does something clever with it's treatment of good and evil. The villains were not some evil rapists who just wanted to rape and kill, they were just street kids who were coerced into doing something horrible. And it ends on that note and questions the almost black and white morality of Last House. I say almost because, yeah murder won't bring the girls back, but many would argue that it was completely justified. Unlike say when Sydow kills the child in The Virgin Spring.
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