This ain't a film you just throw in on Saturday night with the family to spend some quality time together. It's a movie of violation and no remorse, spurned on by the maniacal and unrelenting bastard Krug (played horribly well by David Hess). It's perverted and twisted, shattering the lives of a family with an oddly realistic tangent of a random encounter gone wrong. There's a couple of leaps in credibility the viewer has to make, and some stupid cops thrown in to lighten the overall mood, but overall this movie is a pretty shocking film. It's kind of a joke now to watch the included trailer, but it got a lot of attention at the time and is kinda true. This movie really isn't for the faint of heart or casual viewer.
It's young Mari's birthday, and she has finally become an adult. Her doting parents are relatively "hip" (it is from the early 70's, you know), and respect this new change in her, allowing her to go into New York for a rock concert despite their concerns. The foreshadowing is pretty obvious that something bad may happen to Mari and her friend. It does, in a frighteningly real way.
There's a lot of technical problems with the movie, but ultimately it is a low-budget horror film that does what it sets out to do by first-time director Wes Craven. By overlapping violence and depravity over this idyllic Connecticut setting and blossoming innocence of Mari, it's still shocking even today. Some horribly bad music as well, which kinda supports this juxtaposition, but it's so dated now and rather cheesy. It is interesting to note that David "Krug" Hess actually did the music for the film. Fuckin crazy bastard even wrote some tunes for the likes of Elvis, including "All Shook Up" (no shit). Returning to his horror roots, he's recently worked on some music for Eli Roth's upcoming Cabin Fever. Who'd of thunk?
