''Chaos'' is a 2005 American

horror film Horror is a film genre that seeks to elicit fear or disgust in its audience for entertainment purposes. Horror films often explore dark subject matter and may deal with transgressive topics or themes. Broad elements include monsters, apoca ...

about the rape and murder of two adolescent girls. It is an unofficial

remake A remake is a film, television series, video game, song or similar form of entertainment that is based upon and retells the story of an earlier production in the same medium—e.g., a "new version of an existing film". A remake tells the same ...

Wes Craven Wesley Earl Craven (August 2, 1939 – August 30, 2015) was an American film director, screenwriter, producer, actor, and editor. Craven has commonly been recognized as one of the greatest masters of the horror genre due to the cultural imp ...

's ''

The Last House on the Left ''The Last House on the Left'' is a 1972 American exploitation horror film written, directed and edited by Wes Craven in his directorial debut. The film follows Mari Collingwood (Sandra Peabody), a hippie teenager who is abducted, raped, and ...

'', with all character names changed and a different ending. It stars Kevin Gage and was written and directed by David DeFalco. The film received negative reviews.

Plot

Emily's friend Angelica invites her to a

rave A rave (from the verb: '' to rave'') is a dance party at a warehouse, club, or other public or private venue, typically featuring performances by DJs playing electronic dance music. The style is most associated with the early 1990s dance mus ...

party in the woods. Emily's parents, Leo and Justine, tell her she must return by midnight or call if she's going to be late. At the party, Angelica asks Swan, another party guest, for ecstasy. Swan says he has some in a nearby cabin, where his friends live, and the girls agree to accompany him there. They are unaware that Swan's friends are actually his father Chaos, a notorious and wanted criminal, Chaos's girlfriend Daisy and felon Frankie, and that Chaos has sent Swan to the party to lure unsuspecting women to him. At the cabin, Emily and Angelica are captured by the gang and taken deep into the woods. The girls manage to escape from their captors and split up to make themselves harder to find. Angelica is caught by Daisy and brought before Chaos, who tortures her, stabs her to death, and violates her corpse. After sunset, the gang finds Emily, who steals Daisy's knife in a struggle and stabs Swan viciously in the genitals. Rather than letting his son bleed to death, Chaos suffocates him and promises to murder Emily in revenge. Justine becomes nervous about Emily's whereabouts and convinces Leo to call the police, although she suspects that local police officer MacDunner won't take her seriously because he is racist towards her family. Justine and Leo head into the woods to search for the girls themselves, and find Angelica's corpse. They return to their home. Chaos and Frankie recapture Emily and bind her with rope. Chaos tortures her to death by cutting her anus and genitals, but cannot rape her as a result. The gang prepares to leave the area, but Chaos's van fails to start, forcing them to abandon it and search for a car to steal. The van is then found by MacDunner and his partner Wilson, who discover blood-stained clothes within. The gang heads to a nearby house to steal the car, unaware that they have arrived at Emily's home. Leo lets Chaos and his group inside, but notices that Daisy is wearing Emily's belt. Suspecting the group of being involved with Emily's disappearance, Leo calls the police, while Chaos and Frankie prepare to hot-wire his car and kill the couple. Chaos is confronted by a shotgun-wielding Leo, demanding answers about Emily. In the meantime, Frankie has captured Justine, and brings her to Chaos, distracting Leo. Chaos disarms Leo and takes the shotgun, shooting Daisy when she tries to persuade him to leave the house. In the ensuing confusion, the couple escape. Leo finds a chainsaw and attacks, killing Frankie and disarming Chaos of his shotgun. Before Leo can shoot him, MacDunner and Wilson arrive and order Leo to drop his weapon. When Leo hesitates, MacDunner fatally shoots him. Justine grabs Wilson's gun and shoots MacDunner in the back. Wilson disarms Justine, but Chaos shoots him and then Justine. Chaos's laughter is heard over the closing credits.

Cast

* Kevin Gage as Chaos * Stephen Wozniak as Frankie * Kelly K.C. Quann as Daisy * Maya Barovich as Angelica * Chantal Degroat as Emily *

Sage Stallone Sage Moonblood Stallone (May 5, 1976 – July 13, 2012) was an American actor. He was the eldest child of actor Sylvester Stallone. Early life Sage Stallone was born in Los Angeles, California, the elder son and first child of Sasha Czack and ...

as Swan *

Deborah Lacey Deborah Lacey is an American actress. Career Lacey had a recurring role in the final season of ''Star Trek: Deep Space Nine'' as Sarah Sisko, the mother of Benjamin Sisko. More recently, Lacey had the recurring role of Carla in ''Mad Men''. Lace ...

as Justine * Scott Richards as Leo *

Ken Medlock Kennard Medlock (born October 31, 1949) is an American character actor and former baseball player known for his role in ''Moneyball''. As a player, Medlock was a pitcher for the Decatur Commodores The Decatur Commodores were a professional ...

as Officer MacDunner * Jeb Barrows as Officer Wilson

Critical response

Rotten Tomatoes Rotten Tomatoes is an American review-aggregation website for film and television. The company was launched in August 1998 by three undergraduate students at the University of California, Berkeley: Senh Duong, Patrick Y. Lee, and Stephen Wang ...

, ''Chaos'' has a 5% rating, based on reviews from 19 critics. On

Metacritic Metacritic is a website that review aggregator, aggregates reviews of films, TV shows, music albums, video games and formerly, books. For each product, the scores from each review are averaged (a weighted arithmetic mean, weighted average). M ...

, the film has a score of 1 out of 100, based on reviews from 9 critics, indicating "overwhelming dislike" and making it the second-worst reviewed film on their site. Joshua Land of ''

The Village Voice ''The Village Voice'' is an American news and culture paper, known for being the country's first alternative newsweekly. Founded in 1955 by Dan Wolf, Ed Fancher, John Wilcock, and Norman Mailer, the ''Voice'' began as a platform for the crea ...

'' wrote, "The reference point is obviously Wes Craven's ''Last House on the Left'', but ''Chaos'' lacks the audience-implicating boldness or howling political outrage of that landmark; where ''Last House'' was provocative, ''Chaos'' is merely disgusting." The sole positive review for both Rotten Tomatoes' and Metacritic's listings came from Ken Fox of ''

TV Guide TV Guide is an American digital media company that provides television program Television, sometimes shortened to TV, is a telecommunication medium for transmitting moving images and sound. The term can refer to a television set, or t ...

''s Movie Guide, who gave it 2½ out of 4 stars and said, "Unlike so many other ''Last House on the Left'' rip-offs, this virtual remake is reasonably well shot and convincingly acted."

Roger Ebert

''Chaos'' received some publicity from

Roger Ebert Roger Joseph Ebert (; June 18, 1942 – April 4, 2013) was an American film critic, film historian, journalist, screenwriter, and author. He was a film critic for the ''Chicago Sun-Times'' from 1967 until his death in 2013. In 1975, Ebert beca ...

's zero star review and the filmmaker's response. Ebert wrote in his initial review that "''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." DeFalco responded with a full page letter in the ''

Chicago Sun-Times The ''Chicago Sun-Times'' is a daily newspaper published in Chicago, Illinois, United States. Since 2022, it is the flagship paper of Chicago Public Media, and has the second largest circulation among Chicago newspapers, after the ''Chicago T ...

'', 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?" Ebert replied to DeFalco in the article "Evil in film: To what end?", with "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." Ebert also argued that, "Your real purpose in making ''Chaos'', I suspect, was not to educate, but to create a scandal that would draw an audience. There's always money to be made by going further and being more shocking. Sometimes there is also art to be found in that direction, but not this time."

References

External links