The House on the Edge of the Park

Infobox Film
name = The House on the Edge of the Park


image_size =
caption = Theatrical poster
director = Ruggero Deodato
producer = Franco Di Nunzio
Franco Palaggi
writer = Gianfranco Clerici
Vincenzo Mannino
narrator =
starring = David Hess
Annie Belle
Christian Borromeo
Giovanni Lombardo Radice
Marie Claude Joseph
music = Riz Ortolani
cinematography = Sergio D'Offizi
editing = Vincenzo Tomassi
distributor = United Artists (Italy)
released = flagicon|Italy November 6, 1980
runtime = 91 min
country = Italy
language = Italian
budget = Unknown
preceded_by =
followed_by =
website =
amg_id = 1:23387
imdb_id = 0080503

The House on the Edge of the Park ( _it. La casa sperduta nel parco) is a 1980 film from the Italian director Ruggero Deodato. It features David Hess from Wes Craven's "The Last House on the Left" (playing a similar character), and Giovanni Lombardo Radice.

Plot

Hess is driving down a highway in New York, he then rams a girls car off the road, and rapes and strangles her. Later he arrives at the garage which he owns with Morghen, both of them are heading into town to attend a disco, however they are interrupted by Annie Bell and her boyfriend, who have a broken car, Hess fixes it.

As thanks the young couple invite both men to a party. When they arrive Hess and Morghen act like gentlemen and take part in a poker game. Other guests at the party take advantage of the retarded Morghen and Hess snaps, after beating the male guests and tying them up. He then proceeds to rape and molest the female guests, who are turned on by it. A young girl then arrives, called Cindy and Hess takes his rage out of her, which includes sexual humiliation and a graphic scene of mutilation (the main cause of controversy) soon after the guests take things into their own hands, ending in the gory death of Hess and the wounding of Morghen. In the end it turns out that the entire party was a set up, as the girl Hess raped at the beginning was the sister of the party host, and it was all a game.

Controversy

Deodato's film has been criticized for depicting rape victims enjoying their ordeal, and its close-ups of the mutilation of a helpless, sobbing young woman by a sneering Hess.Fact|date=February 2007

"The House on the Edge of the Park" was initially rejected for a UK cinema certificate by the BBFC when first submitted in March 1981, and later found itself on the DPP list of "video nasties" when it was revealed that the uncut version was readily available on UK video. When it was eventually passed by the BBFC in July 2002, it was cut by 11 minutes and 43 secs, with almost all of the rape and violence either replaced or removed entirely.

The USA Media Blasters release is completely uncut at 91 minutes.

In 2006, the BBFC commissioned a group of academics at the University of Wales, Aberystwyth to conduct research into people's responses to films that include scenes of sexual violence. "The House on the Edge of the Park" is one of the films included in their remit to examine. [ [http://www.extremefilmsresearch.org.uk Extreme Films Research ] ] .

External links

* [http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0080503/ Page at Internet Movie Database]

Footnotes