Surprisingly, I've been reading a lot of Roger Ebert reviews lately.

I know: Everyone goes to his site to see if the latest Hollywood money-pit is worth plopping down even a few pitiful dollars. But I've actually been reading his reviews more than I've been seeing the movies he critiques. Especially the bad reviews. They're certainly more entertaining than the movies would be, no question.

Having been a music reviewer myself (and by the way Juan Maclean's album is terrible), I can tell you firsthand how hard it is to write a review of anything. It takes a certain sort of person to tell you what the movie is like, as well as how good or bad it is, and why you think so. It takes an especially talented person to do it all consistently so that you have an idea of the actual personality behind the review, hence how one should react to it, and still be entertaining in the process. There's a reason Ebert's won the Pulizer Prize and I haven't. Roger Ebert is, despite his pop-culture profession, an incredibly gifted writer.

Anyway... A couple of weeks ago, Ebert posted a scathing review of the film "Chaos." The film seems to be a not-so-subtle retread of "Last House on the Left," the 1972 film from Wes Craven (creator of the "Freddy" movies). Except that this version is just an excuse for violent sadism without any thought behind it, despite the fact that the movie opens with a ludicrous "we might be saving lives" message.

Perhaps not so surprisingly, the filmmakers responded to his one-star review with an open letter to him (actually, a paid advertisement) in the Chicago paper that Ebert writes for. The filmmakers were obviously taken aback, though conscious of a possible publicity stunt, and recited the tired old "evil for evil times" lines. Ebert's review is here. The filmmakers' response, and Ebert's rebuttal, is here. You should read both before you continue.

Okay, you're back, right?

Now I may not know much, but I know about sleazy and sadistic movies. So I thought I'd throw my hat into the ring, because... Well, why the hell not?

So I wrote this letter to Ebert's publishers:

Dear Mr. Ebert:

I just read your review of "Chaos," the filmmakers' reply and your response, and I'd just like to comment on it. I should say that I have not seen the film, so I am only going by your criticism and the debate that followed. But I think I can make a few points about it.

There are essentially two justifications that they brought up for making the movie. You replied to both of them, but I'd like to add my two cents.

1. The ridiculous "educational" message that opens the film. As you rightly pointed out, the only message one could possibly learn is "that evil people will torture and murder them if they take any chances, go to parties, or walk in the woods" and "that evil reigns and will triumph." You neglected to mention one thing: The only victims who did anything "wrong" were women. Were we to take the message seriously, it is this: that women (especially young and pretty ones) should stay home and do what they're told, and if they don't, they DESERVE to get tortured, raped, and killed. This is a classic example of what feminists call the "protection racket," and there's probably enough in this one movie to fuel a dozen Susan Sontag books.

2. The "violent films for a violent society" justification. For one thing, it's based on a failed premise: our society may be violent, and in fact violent crime rates have risen slightly in the past two or three years. But crime rates are nowhere near what they were in the late 1970's or early 1990's, and in general have been declining. (Statistics here: http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/bjs/glance/cv2.htm .) Following their logic, their film should not have contained any more violence than the most violent film of 1993.

But even this reasoning is bunk, and you let them off much too lightly when you simply called it a "surrender." The filmmakers claim that they "tried to give you and the public something real." This claim has a simple rebuttal: Their film is not a documentary. It is fabricated out of whole cloth - more accurately, out of the celluloid scraps of better films, as you and others pointed out. The filmmakers chose what to put on screen; it is no more "real" than an episode of Full House.

They may not accept this rebuttal, so let's try a simple thought experiment. Let's suppose this film was based on actual events that happened in real life, where every drop of screen blood matched a drop from a very real human. Do you think the filmmakers would be able to look the victims and their families in the eyes? I personally think they wouldn't even be able to shoot the film without feeling as you did - "filled with sadness and disquiet," this time about themselves.

There is, of course, something much uglier going on here. There is an unspoken rule about seeing horror films: we don't just want to recoil at the violence, we want at some level to identify with the killers - to vicariously live out our own sadistic urges. But we don't want to admit this, even to ourselves, so we dehumanise the killers. It's usually done in one of two ways: either by making them utterly inhuman and preternaturally powerful (the un-killable villains in the "Halloween" and "Friday the 13th" films utter not a single line of dialogue), or by making them people who are completely outside of society (usually they are depicted as poor rural whites, which opens up a whole other can of worms). Because this is clearly the only reason to see this film, I suggest a better title for the movie: "Id."

This isn't really all that novel. It has been going on long before films were invented, from Roman gladiators to Grand Guignol. In fact, if the filmmakers had copped to their motives, I would say you were being too hard on the movie, and would recommend you give it one star instead of none. But they do not. Their response is not an intellectual rebuttal by filmmakers who take their subject matter seriously. It is the reaction of a person who has lived all his life in one dark corner of his own basement, blinking when the lights are turned on.

There's more to the story. After I wrote this email, Ebert's website published another email from Andrew at Dread Central. It described the Los Angeles premiere of "Chaos" thusly:

I attended the Los Angeles screening of "Chaos" and director DeFalco and Bernheim were in attendance. In order to create more publicity, they were handing out copies of your review and their "clever" response letter. The audience, however, saw through their charade and lashed out during the Q&A.

Basically, DeFalco (adorned in a wrestler outfit and red contacts) started the discussion by shouting about how "hardcore" this film was. He then spouted out phrases like "I am a demon" and "I am the king of violence and evil!" But when members of the audience started in about the pointless violence of "Chaos," the duo fell back on the film's opening "cautionary tale" crawl. As they started on a long diatribe about how they're trying to "warn and save lives," members of the audience pointed to DeFalco's acts of shameless exhibitionism (which are also displayed on the film's website). After awhile, DeFalco basically stooped to threatening the audience ("You saw what's on screen! You know what I'M capable of!")

(At this point, someone in the audience shouted, "Well, it ain't directing a movie!" And if they didn't, I'll be really pissed off. Anyway:)

P.S. Sage Stallone and many of the "Chaos" actors crashed the screening. Apparently, they were forced to do the film by contract, when they had originally signed for a "Last House on the Left" remake (producer Bernheim came onboard, replaced the creative team, and decided to plagiarize the film instead). None of them seemed too fond DeFalco or his film.

Yeah, so of course they're misogynist idiots who created a film for sadists without even knowing it.

I'd be remiss if I didn't include the last line of my letter to Ebert:

Having said that, I'm glad you brought the film to my attention. I am a rather shameless fan of vicarious sadism, and will definitely see it as soon as possible. Just not in public.

The people at rogerebert.com were kind enough to print my letter. So now I guess I'll go see the movie in whichever theater puts miniscule profits ahead of morality, just to lay the matter to rest.

Incidentally, I would be lying if I said that getting even a cursory email from Roger Ebert did not give me a tingling in the loins.

I can hear him thinking now: "Yeah, now if only you were a body double from Beyond the Valley of the Dolls."