The “repulsive and cruel” movie Roger Ebert refused to review: “A film I regret having seen”
The chances of Roger Ebert endorsing the unofficial remake of a movie he’d enjoyed over 30 years previously were always 50/50, but he ended up despising it so much that he didn’t even bother offering a review, instead decrying the film for even existing.
Not only that, but the vaunted critic admitted that he wished he’d never seen it in the first place, and he encouraged everyone to follow suit and avoid it like the plague. Truth be told, he was never the biggest horror fan, but he was capable of dishing out high marks when the genre left him sufficiently impressed.
Writer and director David DeFalco’s 2005 horror flick, Chaos, is basically Wes Craven’s The Last House on the Left. The original was one of the most controversial pictures of its era, but Ebert nonetheless awarded it a solid 3.5-star rating during its initial release in 1972, so he clearly wasn’t against the narrative.
However, when DeFalco told his version of basically the exact same story with the names of the characters and the ending changed, he was affronted. The early 2000s saw the torture porn craze enter full bloom, and no amount of gore and graphic violence can cover up the shortcomings of a movie that he believed wasn’t just lacking on every level, but offensive to anyone who laid eyes on it.
“Chaos is ugly, nihilistic, and cruel; a film I regret having seen,” he opened a thumbs-down slaughter. “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. The movie denies not only the value of life, but the possibility of hope.”
Instead of offering his own insights, Ebert shared how several of his peers and various publications had trashed the film, and he sounded almost traumatised by his own experience. “There are two scenes so gruesome I cannot describe them in a newspaper,” he intoned. “No matter what words I use.”
“Having seen it, I cannot ignore it, nor can I deny that it affected me strongly,” he added. “I recoiled during some of the most cruel moments, and when the film was over, I was filled with sadness and disquiet.” That was as close as he got to offering an analysis, with the only thing that even resembled a review being a quick run-through of the plot.
The violence? “Sadistic, graphic, savage, and heartless.” The dialogue? “Often racist.” The action? “Involves the girls weeping and pleading for their lives.” Kevin Gage’s performance as the title character? “Repulsive and cruel.” That’s virtually all he had to say about what unfolds during Chaos, so anyone looking for an actual review would have been left disappointed.
DeFalco took those criticisms to heart, taking out a full-page ad in response to Ebert’s evisceration. Did he care? Not in the slightest, since he replied by suggesting that “your real purpose in making Chaos, I suspect, was not to educate, but to create a scandal that would draw an audience.” Needless to say, he didn’t take the bait.
