Chaos (2005 film)

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Not to be confused with Chaos (2006 film) which is sometimes called a 2005 film.

Chaos
Theatrical release poster.
Directed by	David DeFalco
Produced by	Steven Jay Bernheim
Written by	David DeFalco
Starring	Kevin Gage, Stephen Wozniak
Distributed by	Dominion Entertainment
Release date(s)	10 August 2005
Running time	74 minutes
Language	English
Official website
Allmovie profile
IMDb profile

The poster design for Chaos was also very similar in design to the The Last House on the Left film poster.

Chaos is a 2005 movie about the rape and murder of two teenagers. It stars Kevin Gage and was directed by David DeFalco. It is rated R "for violence and language".^{[citation needed]}

1 Synopsis
2 Critical response
- 2.1 Roger Ebert
3 References
4 External links

[edit] Synopsis

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Chaos is about two teenagers who go to a rave in the woods to score some ecstasy, and are then raped and murdered by Chaos, the film's titular character, and his two accomplices.

This movie is extremely reminiscent of Wes Craven's Last House on the Left, itself a remake of Ingmar Bergman's The Virgin Spring. However the director has denied any connection to these two movies, and neither Craven nor Bergman were given a story credit. More controversy stems from the film's tagline, which is obviously borrowed from the infamous tagline of Last House on the Left.

The only substantial difference between Chaos and the previous two films is the ending, where Chaos eschews the questions its predecessors raised on vigilantism and revenge, and instead seems to state simply "evil exists."

Chaos opens with a title card calling it a cautionary tale, and when pressed to justify the movie, DeFalco says that he is only trying to save lives.

[edit] Critical response

Chaos earned Rotten Tomatoes's rating of 7%,^[1] and its Metacritic rating is 3 out of 100,^[2], and, according to them, it's the third worst reviewed movie of all time[1]. Conversely, a positive review came from Ken Fox of TV Guide's Movie Guide, who said, "Unlike so many other Last House on the Left rip-offs, this virtual remake is reasonably well shot and convincingly acted."^[3]

[edit] Roger Ebert

Despite general controversy, Chaos received most of its publicity from Roger Ebert's zero star review and the filmmaker's response. Ebert wrote in his initial review:

"Chaos is ugly, nihilistic, and cruel -- a film I regret having seen. I urge you to avoid it. Don't make the mistake of thinking it's "only" a horror film, or a slasher film. It is an exercise in heartless cruelty and it ends with careless brutality."^[4]

DeFalco responded with a full page letter in the Chicago Sun-Times to rationalize the very existence of his movie, saying in part,

"Mr. Ebert, how do you want 21st century evil to be portrayed in film and in the media? Tame and sanitized? Titillating and exploitive? Or do you want evil portrayed as it really is? "Ugly, nihilistic and cruel," as you say our film does it?"^[5]

Ebert replied to DeFalco in the article "Evil in film: To what end?" Ebert wrote:

"In a time of dismay and dread, is it admirable for filmmakers to depict pure evil? Have 9/11, suicide bombers, serial killers and kidnappings created a world in which the response of the artist must be nihilistic and hopeless? At the end of your film, after the other characters have been killed in sadistic and gruesome ways, the only survivor is the one who is evil incarnate, and we hear his cold laughter under a screen that has gone dark. [...] Your answer, that the world is evil and therefore it is your responsibility to reflect it, is no answer at all, but a surrender."^[5]