Last House on Dead End Street (1977)

It had been quite a few years since I had seen "Last House on Dead End Street" so I figured a revisiting was surly in order. So as I was recently re-experiencing it, my recollection came trickling back and I feel that my latest experience with the film was a bit more 'warm' than my previous one - though I still find that I don't like the movie as much as many people seem to.

A dirtbag reprobate gets out of prison and decides to get into the movie-making business. He assembles a crew of weirdos and they start making psychedelic snuff films in an abandoned building for jaded porn distributors...

I definitely appreciated it more this time around - as it WAS a very shocking and mean-spirited film for it's time - containing graphic scenes of torture, dismemberment and a chick's corpse being gutted. There's also a fairly unsettling and nightmarishly surreal sense to these scenes that gives the film a bit more 'character' than your average gore flick, I'd say. Not to say the film isn't completely trashy and depraved 'exploitation', cuz it certainly IS. For example, a prolonged scene of a chick in black face getting whipped at a party and a guy forced to blow a deer hoof dick (?).  According to historical records, the majority of the film's budget was frittered away on drugs during filming, which clearly shows in the final product. This movie obviously wasn't shot using the most high-end equipment and film stock... Despite these favorable qualities, I still find the film to be a bit lacking, overall. Like it's just missing something that I can't quite figure out. Still, it definitely needs to be recognized as an important early breakthrough in the realm of 'extreme' cinema and, for that, it comes recommended.