Chaos (2005 film)

Not to be confused with Chaos (2006 film) which is sometimes called a 2005 film.

Chaos
Theatrical release poster.
Directed by	David DeFalco
Produced by	Steven Jay Bernheim
Written by	David DeFalco
Starring	Kevin Gage Stephen Wozniak Kelly K.C. Quann Maya Barovich Chantal Degroat Sage Stallone
Distributed by	Dominion Entertainment
Release date(s)	10 August 2005
Running time	74 minutes
Language	English
Budget	$1,000,000
Box office	$20,166 [1]

Chaos is a 2005 movie about the rape and murder of two adolescent girls. It stars Kevin Gage and was directed by David DeFalco.

Plot

While living at her parents' mountain home, Emily (Chantal Degroat) is visited by her friend Angelica (Maya Barovich), who invites her to a rave party in the woods. Her parents, Leo (Scott Richards) and Justine (Deborah Lacey), let her attend, under the condition that she returns at midnight and calls if she's going to be late.

Arriving early at the party, Angelica immediately attempts to acquire ecstasy and suspects an attendee named Swan (Sage Stallone) is carrying the drug. When asked about it, Swan informs the two girls that he doesn't have any ecstasy on him, but he has it in a nearby cabin, where his friends live. He requests that Emily and Angelica come to the cabin with him and meet his friends; the two comply.

Unbeknownst to the girls, Swan's friends are actually his father Chaos (Kevin Gage), a notorious and wanted criminal and his father's gang, which consists of Chaos' girlfriend Daisy (Kelly K.C. Quann) and felon Frankie (Stephen Wozniak). Chaos sent his son to the party to lure unsuspecting females to him.

Upon their arrival at the cabin, Emily and Angelica are quickly captured by the gang and taken to an abandoned part in the woods. The girls manage to escape their captors and split up in an attempt to make it harder for Chaos and his gang to find them. Angelica is ultimately caught by Daisy and brought before Chaos, who tortures and stabs her death, and then proceeds to violate her corpse.

Chaos and his group continue their pursuit of Emily, even as the sun sets. They briefly re-encounter her, but Emily manages to steal Daisy's knife in a struggle and stabs Swan in the genitals. Knowing his wound is fatal, Chaos suffocates his son and promises to murder Emily.

Meanwhile, Justine becomes nervous about Emily's whereabouts when she doesn't answer cell phone and convinces Leo to call the police. However, Justine suspects MacDunner (Ken Medlock), the investigating officer, won't attempt to find her, so she and Leo go into the woods themselves. While searching for Emily, the couple find Angelica's corpse.

Chaos and Frankie finally recapture Emily and bound her with rope. In retaliation for his son's death, Chaos brutally violates Emily with his knife. With both girls dead, the gang prepares to leave the area, when Chaos' van fails to start up. Knowing that they'll be caught if they stay in the woods, Chaos and his gang leave the vehicle and look for a car to steal. Their van is then found by MacDunner and his partner Wilson (Jeb Barrows), who discover blood stained clothes.

The gang decides to go to a nearby house, with the intent of stealing the owner's car, unaware of the fact that they arrived at Emily's home. Leo lets Chaos and his group stay at the home, but notices that Daisy is wearing Emily's belt. Suspecting the group of being involved with Emily's disappearance, Leo calls the police, while Chaos and Frankie prepare to hot-wire his car and kill the couple.

Chaos is confronted by a shotgun wielding Leo, determined to find out what happened to his daughter. When Frankie arrives with a captured Justine, Chaos disarms Leo and takes the shotgun. Instead of shooting Leo and Justine, however, Chaos shoots Daisy when she tries to convince him to leave the house. In the ensuing confusion, the couple escapes.

Leo emerges with a chainsaw and slashes Frankie across the stomach, and proceeds to attack Chaos. In the ensuing struggle, Leo manages to get the upper hand and prepares to kill Chaos. Before he can, MacDunner arrives and kills Leo when he refuses to drop his weapon. Justine retaliates by shooting MacDunner in the back and Wilson is killed by Chaos. Chaos then shoots Justine in the head and his laughter is heard.

Cast

• Kevin Gage as Chaos
• Sage Stallone as Swan
• Kelly K.C. Quann as Daisy
• Maya Barovich as Angelica
• Chantal Degroat as Emily
• Stephen Wozniak as Frankie
• Deborah Lacey as Justine
• Scott Richards as Leo
• Ken Medlock as Officer MacDunner
• Jeb Barrows as Officer Wilson

Critical response

The poster design for Chaos (above) was also very similar in design to the The Last House on the Left film poster.

Chaos earned Rotten Tomatoes's rating of 7%,^[2] and its Metacritic rating is 1 out of 100,^[3], and is the worst reviewed film on their site (tied with Bio-Dome and The Singing Forest).[1]. Joshua Land of The Village Voice wrote, The reference point is obviously Wes Craven's Last House on the Left, but Chaos lacks the audience-implicating boldness or howling political outrage of that landmark; where Last House was provocative, Chaos is merely disgusting."^[4]

Conversely, the sole positive review for both Rotten Tomatoes' and Metacritic's listings came from Ken Fox of TV Guide's Movie Guide, who gave it 2½ out of 4 star and said, "Unlike so many other Last House on the Left rip-offs, this virtual remake is reasonably well shot and convincingly acted."^[5]

Roger Ebert

Chaos received some publicity from Roger Ebert's zero star review and the filmmaker's response. Ebert wrote in his initial review that "Chaos is ugly, nihilistic, and cruel -- a film I regret having seen. I urge you to avoid it. Don't make the mistake of thinking it's "only" a horror film, or a slasher film. It is an exercise in heartless cruelty and it ends with careless brutality."^[6]

DeFalco responded with a full page letter in the Chicago Sun-Times , saying in part, "Mr. Ebert, how do you want 21st century evil to be portrayed in film and in the media? Tame and sanitized? Titillating and exploitive? Or do you want evil portrayed as it really is? 'Ugly, nihilistic and cruel', as you say our film does it?"^[7]

Ebert replied to DeFalco in the article "Evil in film: To what end?", with "In a time of dismay and dread, is it admirable for filmmakers to depict pure evil? Have 9/11, suicide bombers, serial killers and kidnappings created a world in which the response of the artist must be nihilistic and hopeless? At the end of your film, after the other characters have been killed in sadistic and gruesome ways, the only survivor is the one who is evil incarnate, and we hear his cold laughter under a screen that has gone dark. [...] Your answer, that the world is evil and therefore it is your responsibility to reflect it, is no answer at all, but a surrender." Ebert also argued that, "Your real purpose in making Chaos, I suspect, was not to educate, but to create a scandal that would draw an audience. There's always money to be made by going further and being more shocking. Sometimes there is also art to be found in that direction, but not this time."^[7]

Reference

1. ^ "Chaos (2005) - International Box Office Results". Box Office Mojo. http://boxofficemojo.com/movies/?page=intl&id=chaos05.htm. Retrieved 27 July 2011. 
2. ^ "Chaos Tomatometer". Rotten Tomatoes. http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/10005402-chaos/. Retrieved 2007-03-12. 
3. ^ "Chaos reviews". Metacritic. http://www.metacritic.com/movie/chaos. Retrieved 2007-03-12. 
4. ^ Land, Joshua. "'Chaos' Review'". Village Voice. http://www.villagevoice.com/2005-08-02/film/chaos. Retrieved 2011-05-15. 
5. ^ Fox, Ken. "Review of Chaos". TV Guide. http://www.tvguide.com/detail/movie.aspx?tvobjectid=191927&more=ucmoviereview. Retrieved 2007-03-12. 
6. ^ Ebert, Roger (2005-08-12). "Review of Chaos". Chicago Sun-Times. http://rogerebert.suntimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20050811/REVIEWS/508110303/1023. Retrieved 2007-03-12. 
7. ^ ^{a b} Ebert, Roger (2005-08-19). "Evil in film: To what end?". Chicago Sun-Times. http://rogerebert.suntimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20050818/COMMENTARY/508190304. Retrieved 2007-03-12. 

External links

• Chaos at the Internet Movie Database
• Chaos at AllRovi
• Chaos at Rotten Tomatoes