Editors Note - This review contains spoilers for both Chaos and Last House on the Left. You have been warned.

The chances are, if you're a reader of this site, that you might have some interest in, or curiosity about, this movie. You may also be familiar with the zero star review given to it by Roger Ebert and the pissing match the filmmakers have tried to stir up by responding to Ebert with a full page ad in the Sun Times that states a rationale behind what writer/director Davis DeFalco was trying to do.

Their response certainly raised my level of interest in seeing the movie, since I am a firm believer in the cathartic power of violence in drama and a great many of the horror films that I (and you, dear reader) tend to love have gotten an unfair dismissal from most "serious" film critics, like Mr. Ebert for example.

But I am telling you, as a fan of this genre, that you need to stay away, very far away, from this movie. I will go to my grave defending the artistic and social merits of Herschell Gordon Lewis, Lucio Fulci and several other directors of splatter films but to even attempt to put "Chaos" into the same gory cinematic pool as these other directors is an insult to them and anyone else who wants to make real horror films. This movie is complete and utter horseshit through and through, a seventy minute "fuck you" to anyone who loves horror films or just films in general.

The first insult is found on the film's poster, with a credit that reads, "based on an original idea by ...", because up until the last few minutes of the movie the film is a scene for scene lift of Wes Craven's "Last House On The Left" (another work whose artistic and social value I would defend to anyone, any day of the week), which in itself was lifted from Ingmar Bergman's film "The Virgin Spring", which was itself based on an old Swedish folktale. The fact that the filmmakers actually have the balls to try and pass off their bit of plagiarism as an original idea tells you right there what kind of respect they have for you.

Sure, there are minor differences, which I'll outline for you -- instead of trying to score pot before a rock concert, the two young girls are trying to score ecstasy before a rave, there are four killers instead of three, and there's a prologue that sets up how psychotic the killers are before we meet the two girls. Other than that, the film is exactly the same as Craven's film, up until the last few minutes, which I'll get into shortly. For David DeFalco to think that these minor changes makes his film qualify as an original idea I'm reminded of Vanilla Ice trying to pass off "Ice Ice Baby" as an original song (as opposed to a corruption of the Queen/David Bowie song "Under Pressure") because his song had an extra "ding" at the end of the sampled riff.

And then there are the changes to the ending. In both "Last House on The Left" and "The Virgin Spring" the killers of the children end up in the home of the parents, who then exact revenge on the killers in a manner that is every bit as brutal as anything the killers did to the children earlier in the film. The point that this ending raises is whether or not revenge is worthwhile because now the parents have transformed into killers themselves and nothing that they've done will actually bring their children back. The endings of these films are designed to make you think about the futility of revenge.

In contrast, the end of "Chaos" (and yes, I'm revealing the end of the film and fuck you very much Mr. DeFalco) has a ridiculously over the top and silly sequence that leaves two of the three remaining killers (one of the gang was killed earlier), the two cops investigating the girls' disappearance, and both parents dead. The last shot of the movie is, in fact, from the mothers' point of view as Chaos blows her head off with a shotgun.

Which leaves us to consider ... well, what exactly? That killers are evil and that they're out there? That people get away with murder all the time? These aren't exactly news flashes. If the film is, as its facetious opening crawl would like us to believe, a "cautionary tale", then what advice does it offer as far as what you can do to defend yourself, or keep such things from happening? Is their point that there's nothing you can do once you meet a killer so you might as well just give up?

Of course, this is assuming that any thought besides the quest for a quick buck to be made by remaking a horror classic (without even having the courage to admit that it is a remake) ever entered the cro-magnon minds of these filmmakers, which is giving them too much credit.

Do yourself a favor and rent "Last House on the Left" or "The Virgin Spring" instead, and put some money in the pockets of real artists with something to say. In fact, rent a film by Ed Wood instead ... at least he seemed able to make a more coherent point than anything that David DeFalco might have to say.