It is the lowest-reviewed film on the site. Joshua Land of
The Village Voice wrote, "The reference point is obviously Wes Craven's
Last House on the Left, but
Chaos lacks the audience-implicating boldness or howling political outrage of that landmark; where
Last House was provocative,
Chaos is merely disgusting." The sole positive review for Rotten Tomatoes' listings came from Ken Fox of
TV Guides Movie Guide, who gave it 2½ out of 4 stars and said, "Unlike so many other
Last House on the Left rip-offs, this virtual remake is reasonably well shot and convincingly acted."
Roger Ebert Chaos received some publicity from
Roger Ebert's zero-star review and the filmmaker's response. Ebert wrote in his initial review that "
Chaos is ugly, nihilistic, and cruel – a film I regret having seen. 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." DeFalco responded with a full-page letter in the
Chicago Sun-Times, saying in part, "Mr. Ebert, how do you want 21st-century evil to be portrayed in film and in the media? Tame and sanitized? Titillating and exploitive? Or do you want evil portrayed as it really is? 'Ugly, nihilistic and cruel', as you say our film does it?" Ebert replied to DeFalco in the article "Evil in film: To what end?", with "In a time of dismay and dread, is it admirable for filmmakers to depict pure evil? Have
9/11, suicide bombers, serial killers and kidnappings created a world in which the response of the artist must be nihilistic and hopeless? At the end of your film, after the other characters have been killed in sadistic and gruesome ways, the only survivor is the one who is evil incarnate, and we hear his cold laughter under a screen that has gone dark. [...] Your answer, that the world is evil and therefore it is your responsibility to reflect it, is no answer at all, but a surrender." Ebert also argued that, "Your real purpose in making
Chaos, I suspect, was not to educate, but to create a scandal that would draw an audience. There's always money to be made by going further and being more shocking. Sometimes there is also art to be found in that direction, but not this time." ==See also==