Review of The House by the Lake (1976) by Wayne S — 13 Jul 2013

From the opening all-out car chase to the ambiguous ending, "Death Weekend" - 1976 (aka "The House by the Lake") is several cuts above the typical home-invasion, "rape and revenge," type of drive-in horror film of which is is a pre-eminent example. I might even compare it to "Straw Dogs," the Peckinpah classic, or more disturbingly Michael Haneke's "Funny Games," a film I found reprehensible for its nihilism.

Produced by Ivan Reitman at the beginning of his career and starring Brenda Vaccaro and Don Stroud (anyone around in the 70s and 80s will know those names), this low-budget Canadian thriller has been very hard to find on DVD, but I understand a complete version is now available for viewing on YouTube.

Vaccaro plays Diane, a "model," who has accepted an invitation to spend the weekend at a remote country estate, ostensibly with lots of other guests, by a lecherous dentist whose moral bankruptcy should have been obvious to her, since Vaccaro plays a pretty savvy girl, but her dire situation only becomes apparent when she arrives at the place to discover he cannot resist pawing her and that there's not another person in sight for ten miles. The sleazy doctor (Chuck Shamata) also places her in a room with large mirrors, one-way mirrors behind which the pervert oral surgeon can lurk and peer, and yes photograph his new friend for his private porno collection.

But the real threat to our heroine comes from a gang of drunken, hooligan pot-heads in a souped-up jalopy whom the couple first encounters on the trip up to the estate. Their leader is Lep (Don Stroud), an arrogant bully. The men hang out the car windows; they jeer and leer, throw beer cans, and make obscene gestures at the couple until our girl Brenda, who happens to be behind the wheel of her companion's hot black Corvette, out-drives them in an extended car chase that would make Quentin Tarrantino proud. She eventually runs them off the road into a small creek and Lep is furious... he rants and raves, abuses his buddies, and vows to find her and secure his revenge.

Meanwhile up at the estate, in the course of the first day, the model had figured out that the dentist is a sleaze-ball and calls the weekend off, but it turns out not to be soon enough as that is the moment that the car-load of reprobate hill-billies arrives having tracked down their prey and the home invasion part of the film begins.

Prepare to squirm with discomfort as the larcenous group proceeds to terrorize the couple and wreck the dentist's fine house, all the while exhibiting a palpable sexual threat not only to the model, but to her male companion too.

How far do they go? How much murder and mayhem develop in the course of this thriller? Well, I don't want to spoil the fun, but I doubt that you will want to miss any of it.

I have a vague recollection of having seen this film back in the decade of its first release, and the drive-in where I worked would have probably booked this one. I always liked Vaccaro for her husky voice and her unusual style. And as for Don Stroud... he was a star in the firmament of B-movies - with his menacing good looks and an intense Brando-esque acting style. "Death Weekend" is only for aficionados of this type of exploitation cinema, but one wonders why it has been neglected through the years... perhaps it was just too good for its type?