Shocking seminal slasher!

>> The Last House on Dead End Street returns to the big screen

by MATTHEW HAYS

The ghastly scenarios are nothing if not original. In a humiliating scene, a man held hostage is forced to perform fellatio on a dismembered deer hoof. In another, an imprisoned woman has her legs sawed off.

No, it’s not the latest episode of Fear Factor, rather, it’s the long lost legendary cult horror epic, The Last House on Dead End Street. The film, which was shot in ’73 but remained unreleased until ’77, is now the focus of a new wave of interest, an extremely rare print of the film screening this weekend at Cinéma du Parc, heralding the release of the DVD within months.

The plot of the film is followable, but definitely somewhat confused. A young man, Terry (a performance attributed in the credits to Steven Morrison), gets out of prison for drug possession. Bitter and angry about his hard year behind bars, he swears revenge against the system, eager to make a fast buck in the wonderful world of porn. But Terry soon finds there are sinister forces at work in the skin flick trade. Business pressures propel him and the other cast members into other weird realms of representation. Simple lesbo lust will no longer do; the producers demand raunch, raunch, raunch! As one sleazoid says to another at one point, “This country was built on innovation, so start innovating!”

Mystery director

The star and director of the film is none other than Roger Watkins, a New York based filmmaker and actor. But because of a vicious falling out with the film’s distributors at the time, Watkins had his name removed from the project. Alas, his original, 175-minute epic, then titled The Cuckoo Clocks of Hell, was cut down to 75 minutes and released as Last House on Dead End Street (an apparent effort to cash in on the success of Wes Craven’s Virgin Spring remake, Last House on the Left).

“The producer at the time, Bernie Travis, ruined it,” Watkins says, from his New York home. “At least I had the satisfaction of learning he committed suicide a few years later.”
The film gained great notoriety on the underground circuit upon its release, but with no one willing to take credit for the film, rumours began to fly. Crude production values and lots of verité-like camera work led some to believe parts of Dead End Street were bona fide snuff movie. Censorship in many parts of the world followed. “The only real bits of violence are the ones in the footage of the slaughterhouse [in which cows are cut up],” Watkins says. “But other than that it’s all faked. When the film screened in Dallas, a riot followed. In Chicago someone tried to burn the cinema down after it screened. People really reacted harshly to it.”

Watkins, who went on to make a series of pornography movies, says the inspiration came to make Dead End Street while he was working for legendary filmmaker Nicholas Ray. “I went to the Chelsea Hotel to make a delivery for Nic,” he recalls, “and the guy at the other end said, ‘You look kinda like Manson. You should make a Manson movie.’” Manson’s manner can be felt throughout Watkins’ film; at one point the filmmaker and two of his followers attack and tie up a blind homeless man, raping him and finally cutting his throat.

Hoof job

As for the inspiration for the Bunuelesque fellatio performed on the hoof, Watkins says it just came to him via a prop. “Someone came in with some deer legs. I guess he was a hunter or something. It was spontaneous. One look at those hooves and I knew I had to have a hoof blow job in there.”

Watkins concedes drugs did play a part in the film’s style. “I was on crystal meth throughout the filming,” he says now.

Dead End Street has been resurrected by fans who circulate bootleg copies via the Internet (which you can damn or thank, depending on your view of the film). Watkins learned about its cult status through his girlfriend, who saw copies on sale at eBay. Watkins would soon learn the film had inspired a number of death metal bands to write music, in particular the Forgotten.

“I was as surprised as anyone when I learned of the film’s following,” Watkins says. “It’s lucky it’s happening now, because I’m running out of money.” :

Last House on Dead End Streets screens this weekend at Cinéma du Parc