The plot follows a disgruntled ex-convict (also played by Watkins) who takes revenge on society by kidnapping four acquaintances and filming their murders in an abandoned building.

Watkins, a student at the State University of New York at Oneonta, devised the concept for the film after reading the Charles Manson biography The Family (1971) by Ed Sanders.

In the decades following its release, Last House on Dead End Street was subject to various rumors about who had created and starred in it, as the entire cast and crew were credited using pseudonyms.

Among them are filmmaker Bill Drexel; untrained actresses Kathy and her friend Patricia; and Ken, one of Terry's longtime acquaintances and a former pornographic actor.

Terry quickly seduces Nancy before showing her the footage of the blind man's murder in an attempt to convince her to ask Jim if he will invest in the picture.

The following morning, Terry calls Steve and asks him to stop by the building to visit the film set; he also inquires about a young actress named Suzie Knowles for a part in his movie.

"[6] Horror film critic and scholar Chas Balun echoes a similar sentiment, writing in 1989 that, "Last House on Dead End Street proves especially unsettling in the manner in which it blurs the lines between recording, inciting and participating in an act of violence.

In that unintentional exploitation way, it reproduces the Panic Theater extremes of surrealism, where evisceration is the metaphor for the sex act," likening it to the "bastard cousin of Otto Muehl.

[10] The project was initially conceived as a straightforward biopic about the Manson family, but morphed into a feature about a disgruntled ex-convict who decides to make snuff films with a group of degenerates.

[4] Track listing The original 175-minute version[20][21] of the film was titled The Cuckoo Clocks of Hell, inspired by a quote in the Kurt Vonnegut novel Mother Night (1962).

[13] In May 1977, the film was released in a truncated cut as The Fun House, screening at drive-in theaters throughout Connecticut,[2] as well as in Shreveport, Louisiana,[26] and Millville, New Jersey.

[31] Vernacular historian Bill Landis note that, during the film's New York screenings—which occurred primarily in grindhouse theaters in Times Square—"people on the Deuce sat stunned and sickened, but unable to leave their seats.

For over two decades following the film's theatrical release, the true identities of the director and cast were largely unknown to the public, as the names given in the credits were pseudonyms.

[34] This sparked various rumors surrounding the film, the most well-known being that it had emerged from underground cinema circles in New York, and featured footage of actual murders.

[35] In his 1995 book Killing for Culture, David Kerekes stated: "Any attempt to trace the names behind Last House on Dead End Street will lead no further than the credits themselves, all obviously false.

"[37] In December 2000,[38] a contributor posting as "pnest" on the Internet messageboards of FAB Press (a publishing house devoted to cult movies), claimed to be the director, writer, producer, and editor of the film, "Victor Janos."

[3] After the release of Last House on Dead End Street, Watkins had had a career as a pornographic film director, under the pseudonym Richard Mahler.

[34] Last House on Dead End Street was scarcely released on VHS in the United States, and was made available on video through Venezuelan distributors in the late 1980s and early 1990s.

[44] AllMovie wrote, "This notorious exercise in low-budget gore is poorly edited and photographed, but its catalogue of horrors and a genuinely nasty tone make it worthwhile for fans of sick cinema," drawing comparisons to the Manson family killings.

"[3] Anton Bitel, writing for Film4, called the film "dirt cheap and deeply flawed, but still worth enduring, for even if the deaths are faked, there's a real enough intelligence behind it all.

"[46] Scholars Bill Landis and Michelle Clifford describe the sequence in which Nancy is dismembered alive as "one of the most revolting scenes in exploitation history...  guaranteed to reduce even the most jaded viewers to quivering disgust.

"[47] Critic Chas Balun wrote that the film "delivers a mule kick to the old nugget sack with a loathsome, virulent fury.

"[37] Writer Stephen Thrower similarly suggests that the film possesses "a forbidding, hostile vibe, a malignant radiation that sends your toxicity meter haywire...  What gives it unique status is the aura of pure hatred that oozes out of every pore of the project.

"[48] TV Guide was highly critical of the film, writing "This vain attempt to combine splatter with a commentary on the viciousness of the movie business fails miserably on all counts.