The House by the Lake (1977)

I like the storyline of this show,it attract me so much

Such a frustrating disappointment

The tone of this movie is interesting -- the stakes are both dramatic and high, but it's balanced with a lot of fun, tongue and cheek dialogue.

It is encouraging that the film ends so strongly.Otherwise, it wouldn't have been a particularly memorable film

June 2014: This movie is currently available on Comcast/Xfinity On Demand (as part of the "Fearnet" free movies) as DEATH WEEKEND.The Comcast version is slightly different than the Vestron Video version available on VHS in the United States. First, the American International logo is missing at the beginning, and is replaced by "A Cinepix Video Presentation." More significantly, the climactic throat-slashing scene is more explicit than in the Vestron Video release. Here, we see a longer shot of Diane wielding the piece of glass; two lingering shots of Runt's slashed throat, including Runt grasping his throat as blood spurts through his fingers; and Diane being splattered with blood. All of these shots are missing from the Vestron version.

A sleazy lothario dentist has brought a chick to his country retreat, under the false pretense that there's a party, when he really just wants her to be his next conquest. She's none to pleased on hearing this and an argument ensues. However, their argument pales when they are menaced by a quartet of scuzzy degenerates, who proceed to turn their weekend into a nightmare...Death Weekend is a misleading film, in the sense that any fan of exploitation will probably feel short changed, as in regards to content, it's pretty tame indeed.A film more interested in character exploration, it also takes its time to build to its effective and tense climax.I went into Death Weekend expecting a nasty exploitative shocker but what I got was a solid enough well made film in its own right.A recommended film for those seeking something just a little bit more offbeat, but again, exploitation fans should be aware that this will not be what they're expecting, and some may be underwhelmed by its slow burning style and tame content. I quite liked it overall though, and found its climax fairly gripping. A solid enough revenge film overall, and worth checking out.

I really was not expecting anything spectacular when going into this film. By the time i'd seen this, i'd seen virtually all of the murder/revenge films and just about everything that involved a group of chaotic thugs who terrorize some normal people, who in turn end up fighting back or trying to escape, and they pretty much all were cheap exploitative dribble that was wholly unrealistic and poorly layed out. This movie on the other hand does some things differently that elevate it above pretty much all the rest aside from "Deliverance" and "Straw Dogs" which I'm not sure fall into the same category anyways. A movie like this can never surpass "Straw dogs" who's plot allowed for much more meaning and emotional depth, done so perfectly, where the violence also inevitably seemed more plausible the way it played out.The film opens with a very spectacular car chase where the thugs are harassing the dentist and his model companion who is at the wheel. Pretty soon I was saying to myself "come on.... no other cars use this road?" and then CRASH. Finally the scene ends with the thugs landing in a ditch as the dentist and model drive off, having completely disgraced them, setting off a desperate need for revenge in the thug leader. The film had delivered a very convincing opening act, and from this point I had the sense that this director knew what he was doing.It' the little things that are all at play which end up making the film much more convincing than lesser efforts. For example, when the leader opens up pretending to be nice and reasonable with the dentist in a very sardonic way, and his 3 comrades are snickering at it, as characters they all seem so believable, and this scene really does get across a foreboding sense of bad things to come, as we have already been shown just how fierce the leader can be.One scene that I found to be a huge detractor was where the drunken gas store workers were killed by the thugs with the dentists boat. Firstly it was very coincidental that they borrowed the dentist's boat at this propitious moment, but more importantly, the way that they taunted and tormented the dentist and model, and the way tension grew and grew was so successful, that it seemed very much like a situation of bad luck, and one thing leading to another, though when we see them so callously murder these 2 people on the boat, it destroys much of that very well produced tension, because it means they were going to kill the dentist and model from the very beginning and the fate was sealed.The unfolding chain of death at the end was again, much better executed than in most movies of this type, though still as usual, a little contrived that the shed trap would work so perfectly, that the 2nd last thug would stumble into quicksand and die, while the model avoided the same fate. One thing that I think certainly could have been better handled was the transition from night to day. I would have loved to see shots of the sun rising, of the model shivering in the night, waiting for morning. Regardless, the final showdown between the model and the leader is quite intense, and I love the added irony that the wounded dentist ran off to the car the night earlier after being shot, but died in the car, as he had no car keys, though luckily for the model she learned how to hot-wire cars.The ending shot of the movie can only be described as extremely bizarre, and its so very perverted in the a sado-masochistic sense of what it implies. In terms of drama and meaning, as with the rest of the film, it really does not delve beyond the mere surface, but it does serve as a final jolt to the viewer saying: Not a masterpiece, but this movie definitely has enough thought and effort put into it to place it above average sleazy schlock like "Last House On The Left" or "I Spit On Your Grave"

Harry (Chuck Shamata), a rich lothario dentist, invites model Diane (Brenda Vaccaro, who, at 37, is perhaps a little too old for the part) to spend the weekend with him at his remote lake-side mansion. On their way to the house, the couple have a run-in with four loutish locals who attempt to force their car off the road. After a high speed chase along winding dirt tracks, Brenda (who is at the wheel) succeeds in forcing the thugs to crash into a river. Peeved at having been bested by a woman, head thug Lep (Don Stroud) vows to find the couple and make them pay.Tracking them to their weekend retreat, the gang terrorise the couple before finally killing Harry and raping Brenda. However, the feisty model eventually gets her revenge; she manages to escape from the house and proceeds to bump off her tormentors one-by-one.Death Weekend, a violent rape/revenge thriller in the same vein as the infamous The Last House on the Left, contains all of the ingredients one might expect from such a film—a pretty protagonist, a gang of thoroughly vile bad guys, and violent retribution—but, thanks to particularly poor pacing and not enough in the way of graphic nastiness, winds up being less effective than many a movie from the same genre.My main gripe with Death Weekend is that it takes ages to get going (an hour passes before the gang begin to kill and rape); whilst this admittedly gives us plenty of time to get to really hate Lep and Co. (a nasty bunch made all the more repulsive thanks to the way that they continually delight in mocking their victims with high pitched laughter), it doesn't leave enough time for a truly satisfying finalé.Not only does Brenda dispatch all of the thugs in very quick succession, but she also does so in a fairly bloodless manner. Being a gore-hound, I wanted her to get real nasty, but instead of buckets of gore, we get a tame throat slashing, an immolation, a drowning, and death by car.Death Weekend will definitely be of interest to fans of gritty, 'grindhouse' cinema, but I certainly wouldn't class it as essential viewing.