The House on the Edge of the Park

Made right after Cannibal Holocaust, Ruggero Deodato's home-invasion picture takes the Last House on the Left setup and drops it into a plush villa full of rich people who should have kept the door shut. David Hess, the original Last House villain, plays another leering brute who talks his way into a dinner party and turns the evening into a siege. Britain banned it as a DPP video nasty and hauled it into court, which was the intention as much as an accident. It is ugly on purpose, sleazy and cruel, with Hess frightening and Riz Ortolani's lovely score sitting incongruously on top. A class-revenge twist arrives late to complicate your disgust. Deodato shoots the squalor with a control the material has no right to, and it sticks to you.