Death Weekend
| Death Weekend | |
|---|---|
 Film poster under alternate title | |
| Directed by | William Fruet |
| Produced by | Ivan Reitman |
| Written by | William Fruet |
| Starring |
Brenda Vaccaro, Don Stroud, Chuck Shamata |
| Cinematography | Robert Saad |
| Editing by |
Debra Karen, Debbie Karjala, Jean LaFleur |
| Distributed by | American International Pictures |
| Release dates | 1976 |
| Running time | 87 min |
| Country | Canada |
| Language | English |
| Budget | $500,000 est. |
Death Weekend (originally released in the US under the title The House by the Lake) is a 1976 Canadian horror/thriller film. It stars Brenda Vaccaro and Don Stroud and was one of the first films from Canadian director William Fruet. The low-budget production was shot in rural Canada and at a studio in Kleinburg, Ontario, Canada.
Plot
Diane (Brenda Vaccaro) is a former fashion model who meets a wealthy gentleman named Harry (Chuck Shamata). After a whirlwind romance, she decides to accompany Harry for a weekend getaway at Harry's remote country house by a lake. It soon gets obvious to them both, that they are not made for each other and they start arguing. But this fact will not remain their primary problem for very long.
On their way to Harry's country house in Harry's sports car, Diane asks Harry to let her drive the rest of the way. They soon encounter a car load of four drunken thugs, led by Lep (Don Stroud) and get into a fit of road rage where Diane forces the punks off the road, wrecking their car. Little do Diane and Harry know that the angry gang follows them, looking for some vicious revenge against the arguing, unhappy and unarmed couple. The four thugs break into the lake house and hold both Diane and Harry hostage. Over the rest of the day and night, Lep and his three cohorts, Runt, Frankie, and Stanley, terrorize, harass, and humiliate their two captives from vandalizing the house to stealing Harry's speedboat and wrecking it. When Diane attempts to escape, Lep recaptures her and, as punishment, rapes her.
At nightfall, with the gang becoming out of control with drinking and smoking dope, Harry tries to confront the gang with a pump-action shotgun, but he hesitates shooting any of the gang with results in Lep snatching the weapon from his hands and killing him with it as Harry attempts to flee from the house. It is here when Diane is taken to a bedroom by Runt to be raped again, she fights back and manages to kill him by slashing his neck with a shard of mirror glass and manages to flee from the house. She then proceeds to murder the three remaining thugs all by herself when she traps one of them, Stanley, in the lakefront boathouse and setting it on fire allowing him to burn to death. She then lures the pursuing Frankie to a nearby bog where he falls into a quicksand pit and drowns.
In the morning, Diane and the shotgun-toting Lep face off in a final confrontation in an open field where she attempts to hotwire and escape in Harry's car (with Harry's dead body in the front seat) as Lep tries to shoot her with his shotgun. When Lep runs out of ammo, he climbs on top of the moving car to stop Diane attempting to drive away in which the confrontation ends when Diane manages to shake him off the hood and runs him over with the car, killing him at last. Diane drives the bullet-ridden car to the road where the car stalls on the side of the road. In the final slow-motion shot, Diane, looking exhausted and dazed, exits the totaled car and looks down the empty road as the image freezes and the end credits roll.
Cast
- Brenda Vaccaro as Diane
- Don Stroud as Lep
- Chuck Shamata as Harry
- Richard Ayres as Runt
- Kyle Edwards as Frankie
- Don Granberry as Stanley
- Ed McNamara as Spragg
- Michael Kirby as Ralph
- Richard Donat as Policeman
Release
The film was released in the US under the title House by the Lake. At the time of release, there was some controversy over the films intense scenes of violence. Still, the film was released with only minor cuts to the original version. Over the years, the film has gained some acclaim among horror film buffs and though it was released on VHS at one point by Vestron Video, the film has yet to receive a DVD release.
Alternate versions
The US and English Canadian VHS releases are cut. Edited from the film was an additional shot of Lep on top of Diane as he attempts to rape her, a more graphic shot of Diane slashing Runt's throat, and a longer shot of Stanley burning to death.
However, both the French Canadian and Spanish VHS versions were released uncut.