''Death Weekend'' (released in the USA under the title ''The House by the Lake'') is a 1976

Canadian Canadians (french: Canadiens) are people identified with the country of Canada. This connection may be residential, legal, historical or cultural. For most Canadians, many (or all) of these connections exist and are collectively the source of ...

horror/thriller film. It stars

Brenda Vaccaro Brenda is a feminine given name in the English language. Origin The overall accepted origin for the female name Brenda is the Old Nordic male name ''Brandr'' meaning both ''torch'' and ''sword'': evidently the male name Brandr took root in areas ...

and

Don Stroud Donald Lee Stroud (born September 1, 1943) is an American actor, musician, and surfer. Stroud has appeared in over 100 films and 200 television shows. Early years Stroud was the son of vaudeville actor Clarence Stroud (of "The Stroud Twins" team ...

and was one of the first films from Canadian director

William Fruet William Fruet (born January 1, 1933) is a Canadian film and television director, playwright and screenwriter. He made his directorial debut with the drama ''Wedding in White'' (1972), based on a play he had also written. The film won Best Picture ...

. The low-budget production was shot in rural

Canada Canada is a country in North America. Its ten provinces and three territories extend from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean and northward into the Arctic Ocean, covering over , making it the world's second-largest country by tot ...

and at a studio in

Kleinburg Kleinburg is an unincorporated village in the city of Vaughan, Ontario, Canada. It is home to the McMichael Canadian Art Collection, an art gallery with a focus on the Group of Seven, and the Kortright Centre for Conservation. In 2001, the villa ...

Ontario Ontario ( ; ) is one of the thirteen provinces and territories of Canada.Ontario is located in the geographic eastern half of Canada, but it has historically and politically been considered to be part of Central Canada. Located in Central Ca ...

, Canada. In 2019, the film got a Blu-ray release from Germany. The VHS was seized and confiscated in the UK under Section 3 of the

Obscene Publications Act 1959 The Obscene Publications Act 1959 (c. 66) is an Act of Parliament of the United Kingdom Parliament that significantly reformed the law related to obscenity in England and Wales. Prior to the passage of the Act, the law on publishing obscene mater ...

during the

video nasty Video nasty is a colloquial term popularised by the National Viewers' and Listeners' Association (NVALA) in the United Kingdom to refer to a number of films, typically low-budget horror or exploitation films, distributed on video cassette that w ...

panic.

Plot

The film is set over a period of 24 hours on a cold November day in rural Ontario. Diane (Brenda Vaccaro), a former fashion model, meets Harry (Chuck Shamata), a wealthy dentist swinger. After a whirlwind romance, she decides to accompany Harry for a weekend party at his remote country house by a lake. On their way in Harry's

Corvette A corvette is a small warship. It is traditionally the smallest class of vessel considered to be a proper (or " rated") warship. The warship class above the corvette is that of the frigate, while the class below was historically that of the slo ...

, Diane asks Harry to let her drive. They soon encounter a red-colored 1967

Camaro The Chevrolet Camaro is a mid-size American automobile manufactured by Chevrolet, classified as a pony car. It first went on sale on September 29, 1966, for the 1967 model year and was designed to compete with the Ford Mustang. The Camaro share ...

loaded with four drunken thugs, led by Lep (Don Stroud) and get into a fit of

road rage Road rage is aggressive or angry behavior exhibited by motorists. These behaviors include rude and verbal insults, yelling, physical threats or dangerous driving methods targeted at other drivers, pedestrians or cyclists in an effort to intimid ...

where Diane forces the punks off the road and into a creek bed, wrecking their car. At the lake house, Diane learns that despite what Harry had told her in order to get her to come with him, there are no other guests joining them at the house, and that he is only using her for sex. Diane and Harry are unaware that the angry gang is seeking them, looking for some vicious revenge against the arguing, unhappy and unarmed couple. After the gang rampages through a camping park looking for the car that ran them off the road, they find the Corvette at a rural gas station where Harry had left it to be looked after while taking a less flashy station wagon to the country house. After intimidating the drunk station owners to give them the location to where Harry is staying, Lep and his friends drive off to their destination. 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 (Richard Ayres), Frankie (Kyle Edwards), and Stanley (Don Granberry), terrorize, harass, and humiliate their two captives from vandalizing the house to stealing Harry's speedboat and wrecking it, killing two townspeople in the process. When Diane attempts to escape, Lep recaptures her and, as punishment, rapes her. At nightfall, the gang becomes more out of control with drinking and smoking dope. Harry confronts them with a

pump-action shotgun Pump action or slide action is a repeating firearm action that is operated manually by moving a sliding handguard on the gun's forestock. When shooting, the sliding forend is pulled rearward to eject any expended cartridge and typically to coc ...

, but he hesitates to shoot and Lep snatches the weapon from his hands. Lep then uses it to kill Harry as he attempts to flee from the house, and Diane is taken to a bedroom to be raped again, this time by Runt. Diane fights back and eventually kills Runt by slashing his neck with a shard of mirror glass and she manages to flee from the house. She later traps Frankie in the boathouse and sets it on fire, allowing him to burn to death. She then lures the pursuing Stanley 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 the shotgun. When Lep runs out of ammunition, he climbs on top of the moving car to stop Diane attempting to drive away. The confrontation ends when Diane manages to shake Lep off the hood, and then runs him over, killing him. Diane drives the bullet-ridden car away to a paved road where the car stalls on the side of the road. In the final shot, Diane, looking exhausted and dazed, exits the damaged car and looks down the empty road.

Cast

Filming locations

King, Ontario King (2021 population 27,333) is a township in York Region north of Toronto, within the Greater Toronto Area in Ontario, Canada. The rolling hills of the Oak Ridges Moraine are the most prominent visible geographical feature of King. The Holland ...

Kleinburg, Ontario Kleinburg is an unincorporated village in the city of Vaughan, Ontario, Canada. It is home to the McMichael Canadian Art Collection, an art gallery with a focus on the Group of Seven, and the Kortright Centre for Conservation. In 2001, the vill ...

US release

The film was released in the US by

American International Pictures American International Pictures (AIP) is an American motion picture production label of Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. In its original operating period, AIP was an independent film production and distribution company known for producing and releasing fi ...

under the title ''House by the Lake''. At the time of release, there was some controversy over the film's intense scenes of violence. Still, the film was released with only minor cuts to the original version.

Home video releases

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 Vestron Video was the main subsidiary of Vestron, Inc., a home video company based in Stamford, Connecticut, that was active from 1981 to 1993, and is considered to have been a pioneer in the home video market. The name is now used for a collecto ...

(under the title ''Death Weekend''), the film has yet to receive a DVD release. On December 4, 2017, the movie was released uncut on DVD in Sweden by the distributor Studio S Entertainment.

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.

References

External links

* {{Ivan Reitman 1976 films English-language Canadian films 1970s thriller films 1976 horror films Canadian horror thriller films Home invasions in film Rape and revenge films Films directed by William Fruet Films produced by Ivan Reitman Films set in Ontario Films shot in Ontario 1970s English-language films 1970s Canadian films