Chaos (2005) — Triskaidekafiles

CHAOS

WRITER: David DeFalco

DIRECTOR: David DeFalco

STARRING: Kevin Gage as Chaos

Sage Stallone as Swan

K. C. Kelly as Daisy

Maya Barovich as Angelica

Chantal Degroat as Emily

Stephen Wozniak as Frankie

QUICK CUT: A cautionary tale of buying the marijuana

THE MORGUE

Emily - A young, responsible girl who wants to have just a little bit of fun.

Angelica - Emily’s best friend, and a bit more rebellious and trusting, and constantly getting Emily into trouble.

Chaos - An amoral criminal who only gets off by being cruel. He has no moral centre, good or evil, and just does what he wants because he wants to. The living embodiment of his name. Picture the Joker but less fun and no makeup.

Daisy - Chaos’s girlfriend, as much as any term could apply. She’s an addict, and is pretty much around just because Chaos is an easy hookup for her fix.

TRISK ANALYSIS: Welcome back, Triskelions! A year ago or so, I looked at the hard rock horror movie, Heavy Metal Massacre. I learned the star and director, David DeFalco, did a different movie that some described as also bad, called Chaos. I grabbed it shockingly fast, sight unseen, and it is such an experience I am actually skipping one of my note taking rewatches. But it's not "bad" in the way you think...

Chaos opens up with a text crawl about the statistics of people who are kidnapped and killed, largely women, for the purpose of sexual assault. And already I am regretting this decision.

But then we watch a girl trying to hitch a ride, and the guys are really skeevy, saying they just wanna have a little fun, and they'll take her wherever they wanna go.

Hey, can you direct me to the horror house on highway 5?

Another dude pops out of nowhere and tells the guys to buzz off, and they get confrontational. Then another guy shows up, and the second pair lay a beating down on the others and their car.

This will be fleshed out shortly, but just to cut to the chase here; the girl, Daisy, and the second pair of guys, Frankie and the titular Chaos, are a group who do things like this regularly, lure people in and wail on them for jollies and cash. It’s worth noting, I like doing the inversion of what you expect to happen after that opening text crawl. Nicely done.

Following that bit of ultraviolence, next we meet our main victims for the rest of the movie, Emily and Angelica, who are going off to a party in the woods, which I'm sure will be just fine.

I feel like Mark Duplass is gonna suddenly appear and jumpscare me.

The movie spends it's time bouncing between the girls, the sociopaths, and for some reason, Emily's parents. The girls run into another guy named Swan, and long story short, he lures them into a lucrative recording contr…no wait, wrong Swan. This guy just wants to take them to Chaos’s cabin, with the promise of free weed.

Angelica is more than willing to just go off and get the weed with a stranger Emily, on the other hand, is a bit more cautious.

Once the girls get to Casa del Chaos, the tone shifts swiftly for them. It goes from a free wheeling, if slightly concerned, wheee! We're gonna get some weed! To everyone groping and taunting the girls.

Chaos tries to get the girls to be more agreeable, not that it's necessary, but it makes things easier. Emily gets her hands on a knife, but she is quickly disarmed with a bit of racism thrown in. Angelica agrees to do whatever Chaos wants, as long as he doesn't hurt her friend.

The Mystery Machine has seen better days.

They pack the girls into the van and drive off deeper into the woods, so they can have their fun and not be disturbed. This is not the party in the woods the girls signed up for.

Once they're out there, Angelica just wants to go home, and Chaos tells her that if they play nice, they'll get this over with quickly, and they can go free. Ah yes, I am sure a man named "Chaos" is entirely trustworthy.

Frankie gets first crack, and makes Angelica lick his feet, and this is probably the least offensive thing they ask the girls to do, and where I should stop going into details.

After she gets passed around the group a bit, Angelica finally takes matters into her own hands, or rather, her own knee. When Frankie demands a blowjob, she knees him in the crotch, and the girls make a run for it.

And that’s the difference between theatre and film acting

It doesn't take long for Daisy to capture Angelica though, and Chaos comes along soon after. And up to this point, the movie has been uncomfortable, but nothing too terribly shocking, especially compared to some stuff I've seen.

This was the moment where I went from "Well this isn't THAT bad," to, "Oh. Oh now I get it. Yep."

Everything shifts when Chaos descends even deeper into depravity by slicing off one of Angelica's nipples and eating it. The act itself isn't the worst of it though, it's the screaming, Chaos reveling in it, and the gushing blood that would come from such a large wound. It's not so much that the movie does anything so outlandish you've never seen it, although for some that will be true, but there is a level of brutal realism that makes this deeply more uncomfortable.

Angel dies from her wounds, but even that won't stop someone like Chaos, as he continues to have his way with her.

Once they're all done, the group now has to find Emily, since she can ID them. Meanwhile, her parents are getting antsy and call the police.

As a matter of fact, my refrigerator WASN’T running! You spared me quite a bit of spoilage! Thank you, anonymous young man!

The cops are unsurprisingly unhelpful, and do the usual lines about how the girls probably are off somewhere sleeping off whatever they had at the party, and will turn up.

Chaos and the Chaosettes find Emily, and her and Daisy get in a scuffle. Chaos tells Swan to join in, and all he gets is a knife in the dick. This movie at least likes to hit men where it hurts.

Since he's losing a lot of blood, Chaos suffocates Swan to put him out of this movie's misery, much to the horror of the rest of the group.

Once the useless cops leave after they drop a racism, Emily's parents go off searching for her themselves.

Chaos and friends find Emily again, and this time they strip her and hogtie her, to keep her from running away a third time.

What comes next, well... Roger Ebert once said of this movie that there are two scenes he is unable to describe in a review, and you already know the first one. This is the second. And I agree with him. This is a scene of pure brutality...and I will leave it at saying you see a knife go where knives should not go. This is the one time in 15 years of doing this that has made me question my choices. Well, okay, second. There was Philosophy of a Knife.

Meanwhile, the parents have found Angelica's body, and get back home to call the cops, with a side of trying not to freak out. The cops find Chaos's empty van, after they can't get it started, so the group took to foot, since they know the cops will show up eventually.

The parents hear a knock on the door, and oh no, it's Chaos. He's shown up because he's having car trouble, and needs a hand. Of all the homes, in the whole world...

Emily's dad recognises his daughter's belt, now around Daisy's waist, and he plays the good host. He offers them a room for the night, and will take them into town in the morning. But he's got a bad feeling about this group.

The Chaos crew start getting antsy, so they decide to hotwire the car and sneak off in the night. But as Chaos goes to kill the parents to tie up loose ends, he runs smack into dad with a shotgun.

It doesn't take much for Chaos to get the upper hand, and Daisy makes the mistake of mouthing off. Chaos gets his hands on the shotgun, and kills another of the crew.

Frankie asks if Chaos is out of his mind, and my dude...he calls himself CHAOS. What did you expect??

In all the commotion, the parents snuck off, but dad shows up not too long after with a chainsaw, and takes out Frankie, while mom tries to get the car going.

FRANKIE, YOU WANNA SEE MY NEW CHAINSAW? SORRY THE HOCKEY MASK WAS ON BACKORDER.

Chaos eventually gets the chainsaw out of dad's hands, and he tosses the guy around the house, taunting him about killing and having his way with Emily. Dad jabs a screwdriver into Chaos's leg, and tries to reload the shotgun while the force of nature is distracted.

The cops by now have arrived, and rush in right as they see Dad with the shotgun pointed at Chaos. And what do they do? They shoot the guy with the gun. Sigh.

Mom grabs the cop's pistol and shoots the sheriff with his own gun, for killing her husband, and this is all just going to shit, huh?

Chaos has gotten the shotgun back after dad is shot, and kills the deputy, and shoots the movie, killing it dead as the credits roll. Actually, he shot the mom by aiming right down the barrel of the camera, but to the same end result.

TRISK ASSESSMENT

Video: It looks really good, which is not helpful for this content. I almost wish it WAS grittier and harder to see!

Audio: You can hear all the screaming real well.

Body Count: Everybody’s gonna die.

1 - 38 minutes in and Angel dies from the wounds she has received.

2 - Chaos kills Swan to spare him a slow death.

3 - Emily dies at the hands, and knife, of Chaos.

4 - Dad guts Frankie with a chainsaw.

5 - The cops show up and shoot Dad.

6 - Mom shoots the cop who shot her husband

7 - The deputy gets shot by Chaos

8 - And then he finishes off the mom

Best Corpse: Ahh ha ha ha, I feel uncomfortable choosing a winner for this. But hey, shooting the cop was a good choice.

Blood Type - B+: The effects are very well done, and there’s quite a lot of blood.

Sex Appeal: Much like Philosophy of a Knife, I am not comfortable saying of any of this is “sexy” but there is plenty of nudity.

Drink Up! Evey time someone gets shot.

Movie Review: Setting aside the brutality…this is a HUGE step up from DeFalco’s previous to me effort. This is actually a very well made movie. It had a mission, and it achieved what it set out to do. The acting adds a level of uncomfortable realness to this, with most of the actors doing a great job. Chaos and his casualness about it all, the screaming, you really feel how harrowing and terrifying this all is. But that said, this is a BLEAK movie. There is no happy ending to be had here. This is a rape revenge flick without the revenge. The movie and the character live up to the name “Chaos”. But would I call this “the most brutal film ever”? Nah. it has a few brutal scenes, but aside from those, there are movies with more brutality. I’m sure some movies in the French extremity category could give this a run for it’s money. So from a technical perspective, I have to give this three out of five rope bridges.

Entertainment Value: This movie is not out to educate, and instead it is here to unsettle you, and it does that. But this is not a fun movie to watch, as I’m sure you can imagine. The acting is a definite highlight, and I wish people could see Kevin Gage’s performance as Chaos, without seeing, you know, the movie. This dude understood the assignment. But this is not a pleasant movie, so for entertainment it only gets one out of five rhinestone belts.

Would I call this "the most brutal film ever"? Nah. It has a few scenes that are next level, but...