The Last House on Dead End Street

(1948–2007) studied English Literature and served as an apprentice for film directors Freddie Francis, Otto Preminger, and Nicholas Ray. In the late 1970s, he began working in the adult film industry, writing the screenplay for Roberta Findlay’s Mystique (1979) and working as a director (e.g., Her Name Was Lisa, 1979, starring Samantha Fox) until the late 1980s, mostly under the name Richard Mahler (an amalgamation of Richard Wagner and Gustav Mahler). It was only in the year 2000 that he disclosed a well-kept secret: that it was he who had directed, produced, and starred in the cult classic The Last House on Dead End Street (1977), which he had filmed in 1972 and whose original, lost three-hour cut was titled The Cuckoo Clocks of Hell.