Maple Syrup Massacre is an editorial series where Joe Lipsett dissects the themes, conventions and contributions of new and classic Canadian horror films. Spoilers follow…
William Fruet is one of Canada’s most important directors. He’s renowned for not only his contributions to ‘realist social dramas’ such as 1970’s Goin’ Down The Road (one of Canada’s first English language fiction feature films) and 1972’s Wedding in White, but also for his Canuxploitation films of the 70s.
Death Weekend – or The House by the Lake as it was known in the United States – was made in 1976 in an effort to capitalize on a unique Canadian funding model at the time.
As previously explored in this editorial series, as well as my David Cronenberg podcast Sexy & Surreal, Canadian films are funded by the public via governmental organizations. In the 1970s, the government created the Canadian Film Development Council (CFDC) in an effort to spur the creation of more fiction feature films (as opposed to documentaries, which had until that time been the dominant mode of filmmaking in Canada).
This led to what has become known as the Tax Shelter Era of the late-70s through the 80s, when a ludicrously generous 100% capital cost allowance (CCA) write-off on all Canadian film investment was allowed and the CCA became the carrot used to lure Americans to invest in Canadian films. Many of the films produced during the Tax Shelter Era were genre films due to the low production cost, high return on investment, and ease of sale to foreign markets (ie: back to the US) although there were few, if any, “quality control” mechanisms in place to ensure the resulting films were commercial or even watchable.
This meant that many terrible films were made, as well as several classics. In fact, it was during this period that Cronenberg established himself via his early body horror films, and a number of low-budget slasher films such as Prom Night, Happy Birthday to Me, Terror Train and My Bloody Valentine were made in Toronto, Montreal, and the Maritimes.
Canadian filmmakers like William Fruet saw the writing on the wall. After scraping and begging to secure the $250K budget for his realist period drama Wedding in White, Fruet turned to horror/exploitation to make a quick buck with his next project, Death Weekend.
Much like Shivers, the film stirred up a great deal of controversy. The Canadian public was already up in arms about public funds being used to fund David Cronenberg’s Shivers the year before; that film was famously used in a Canadian Parliamentary debate about the perceived worth of genre fare. (Canadians are wild, y’all).
Both Death Weekend and Shivers hail from Cinépix Film Properties, a Montreal-based producer known for their so-called “maple syrup porn” aka French Canadian softcore porn films (FYI: this is where this editorial series gets its name!).
Fruet’s film follows Harry (Chuck Shamata) a wealthy, entitled dentist who takes a rotating roster of female lovers to his massive lake house property each weekend throughout the summer. When the film opens, it’s Diane (Brenda Vaccaro)’s turn, though almost immediately the fashion model distinguishes herself from Harry’s usual conquest through her love of fast cars and fixing motors (and later, dispatching murderers and rapists).
All of these skills come in handy when she and Harry run afoul of four local thugs after Diane humiliates leader Lep (Don Stroud) with her high-speed driving abilities. This leads Lep, as well as spectacled Runt (Richard Ayres), long-haired Frankie (Kyle Edwards) and Stanley (Don Granberry) to seek Diane and Harry out and terrorize them for the rest of the film.
Based partially on a real-life experience Fruet had while driving in Alberta, as well as Sam Peckinpah’s recently released Straw Dogs, Death Weekend bears all of the familiar narrative and stylistic conventions of home invasion, “hillbilly horror,” and rape revenge films. As Bloody’s Paul Le explains in his own editorial, Death Weekend was unfavourably compared to both Straw Dogs and The Last House of the Left, and it was eventually packaged by the film’s producer Ivan Reitman (Ghostbusters, Porky’s) on a drive-in double bill with I Spit on Your Grave in the US.
Ironically the film was derided by Canadian critics for its crass commercialization and its perceived lack of Canadian themes. This despite the fact that the film features no less than two characters – Harry and Lep – who closely adhere to what Canuxploitation founder Paul Corupe identifies as a trend of “marginalized, ineffective male characters whose insecurity…leads them to a tragic end.” Corupe lists multiple examples from Canadian films of the time, including Fruet’s own Goin’ Down The Road, as well as The Rowdyman (1972) and Paperback Hero (1973), that employ the same archetypes and narrative arcs.
Fruet’s film “also touches on related issues of class and urbanism, highlighting the dis-parity between rich, ‘sophisticated’ city dwellers and the crude rural inhabitants” (Corupe, 101). There’s the backwater seediness of the villains, as well as the ‘stupid hillbilly’ depiction of a pair of drunkard garage employees who are drowned in a lake. Lastly, in yet another example of a Canadian slasher precursor (see: 1974’s Black Christmas) Diane adheres to the characteristics of an early Final Girl who must defend herself when Harry is first emasculated, then murdered by Lep and his flunkies.
All in all, William Fruet’s Death Weekend is an intriguing addition to the Canuxploitation canon of the late 70s and 80s. While it’s not an easy watch, it is another worthwhile example of Canada’s genre output during the heyday of the Tax Shelter Era.
References:
Paul Corupe. “Who’s in the Driver’s Seat: The Canadian Brute Unleashed in Death Weekend.” The Canadian Horror Film: Terror of the Soul, 2015 (eds: Gina Freitag and Andre Loiselle)
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