Last House on Dead End Street: Roger Watkins

In all of my years as a film critic, I have seen many of the goriest films ever made. I have seen cinematic carnage the likes of which most people cannot imagine. It has gotten to the point where onscreen violence doesn't bother me anymore. Or at least I thought so. Roger Watkins' Last House on Dead End Street disturbed me. It reached deep down inside my soul and sand-blasted my calloused sensibilities. The story of an amateur pornographer who decides to make snuff films, Last House on Dead End Street is dirty, sloppily edited, frequently incoherent, and thoroughly misanthropic. The last third of the film is simply comprised of extended torture sequences. And yet, all of the film's flaws come together to create something greater and more horrifically magnificent than anyone involved in the production could have imagined. If Edgar G. Ulmer's Detour (1945) was the accidental masterpiece of film noir, then Last House on Dead End Street is the accidental masterpiece of 70s exploitation. The flaws and technical mistakes give it a surreal, dream-like quality that puts anything created by Dario Argento to shame. There were moments where I had to remind myself that I was actually watching a movie and not re-living some of my more fevered nightmares. The violence is abhorrent and brutally graphic. I could easily name a handful of other films from the same year that were more graphic, but the violence here is given a raw feeling of authenticity that makes it more convincing and potent. I did not enjoy Last House on Dead End Street. But I believe that audiences were never supposed to "enjoy" it. The film is a perfect distillation of human cruelty. All I can do is marvel at it in awe and pray that I never have to watch it again.

9/10