Truly A Letdown

I was quite sorely disappointed with The House On The Edge Of The Park. Now, I have seen the likes of other 1980s Italian horror such as Cannibal Apocalypse and Nightmare City, and I can definitely say I'm not a fan of this sub-genre (which is saddening, seeing as I am Italian in heritage myself). I find them unnecessarily bad and pretty trashy, if not for some interesting gore effects that prod you on just enough to make it through them without stopping entirely. However, I can say one I did like was Cannibal Holocaust. I actually see it carrying some meaning behind it about what is to be "truly civilized," even if Deodato didn't originally intend to merit that. Cannibal Holocaust also managed to stay frightening and gory without becoming overly cheesy in the long run.

Now, The House managed to keep a pretty serious tone for Italian horror shlock (save for Hess' face at the end and some unflinching bad disco dancing), but this movie did not provide AT ALL. I heard all the hype about this one and actually looked for to seeing it, as I love these thriller-esque revenge/exploitation kind of films, if done right. But this movie was nothing more than a soft-core porn with a little bit of violence tacked on (not complaining about the nudity, the women weren't bad to look at) a shoe-stringed plot. I needed more horror to satisfy my cravings. The intended rape scenes failed at conveying the fear these women should have felt. The scene where Alex forced Lisa to have sex, she was way too into it to be believable (probably because she is Hess' wife), not to mention she voluntarily wanted to make out with Glenda? Also, why in the world did Susan (I think that was her) have consensual sex with Ricky? It seemed entirely out of place... I mean the guy was threatening her life earlier, what exactly did she find attractive in her captor?

The table bashing scene was pretty good though, and Cindy's slashing scene was definitely creepy and would have like to have seen more moments like these that actually provoked some kind of emotion from the audience.

I can definitely see this movie getting a remake that can much improve on this interesting, but ultimately failed concept. I had some thoughts running through my head when I was watching this thinking what they could've done differently. Something more along the lines of a constant changing of who has the upper-hand in the situation, with the party-goers equally sadistic in their revenge as Alex and Ricky are in their acts. The two groups keep enacting out more violent schemes on each other until they finally kill the two criminals, with the tension constantly running high, never knowing when the tides of power will turn.