Color, 1975, 78 mins. 7 secs.
Directed by Wes Craven
Starring Jennifer Jordan, Eric Edwards, Ellis Deigh, Erica Eaton, Wes Craven, Lefty Cooper
Quality X (Blu-ray) (US R0 HD)

Despite being a massive and highly controversial box office success, Last House on the Left did nothing to advance the careers of its first-time director, Wes Craven, or producer Sean Cunningham who had used the on-and-off college teacher and film editor on a handful of previous softcore films. During a long professional lull, both men teamed up again to dabble in the world of theatrical porno chic and brought in another key figure as producer, Peter Locke, who would go on to produce Craven's The Hills Have Eyes (and cast the director in a small cameo in Howard Ziehm's 1976 hardcore comedy, Sweet Cakes). Though he refrained from talking about directly during his lifetime, The Fireworks Woman (originally created as The Fireworks Man, a far more logical title) still bears the Craven stamp in many respects and makes for a fascinating detour in between his two influential '70s horror hits (which in turn led to made-for-TV movies and a turbulent time in Hollywood).

In a coastal town (shot around and in Cunningham's real house), our story jumps through time detailing the passionate and turbulent relationship between siblings Angela and Peter (Jordan, credited as Sarah Nicholson, and Edwards, both also seen in Joe Sarno's Abigail Lesley Is Back in Town the same year). Frequently observed and visited by a grinning, smoke-puffing mystery man with a thing for pyrotechnics named Nicholas Burns (Craven(), the brother and sister are sexually drawn to each other but manage to stave off their desires when Peter goes off for seminary studies for four years. Now a priest, he comes back to visit Angela and ignites a sexual union that causes further internal conflict. When he refuses to continue the relationship, Angela seems to ignite an erotic mania within herself and others as she embarks on a twisted sexual odyssey including a lengthy stint with a kinky couple, Elizabeth (Eaton) and Roger (Deigh), for a couple of S&M scenes incredibly similar to the same year's The Image. There's also a bizarre dockside sexual assault scene involving bludgeoning with a big fish, a couple of strong scenes involving New York industry regular Helen Madigan, and a crazed house orgy finale that will ultimately decide Angela and Peter's fate.

Somehow promoted at the time as a feel-good patriotic sex farce (including alternate titles like Angela the Fireworks Woman or Angela Is the Fireworks Woman), this is the kind of challenging, adventurous filmmaking that seemed to sneak into XXX fare quite a bit in the mid-'70s, a la what Abel Ferrara did right after this with 9 Lives of a Wet Pussy. The bulk of it feels like an arty horror film with dreamy narration giving it a Let's Scare Jessica to Death vibe at times, though the film never quite goes into full-on genre territory. (Craven's original scripted ending, detailed in the extras on the Blu-ray, had a grace note that would have definitely tipped it further in that direction.) An erudite guy with an English-teaching background, Craven was open about the literary and cinematic inspirations he worked into his films ranging from Ingmar Bergman to Sigmund Freud; in this case, he draws on his evangelical upbringing to insert quite a bit of Biblical nods into the story along with the core incest idea which feels like an updating of 'Tis Pity She's a Whore. All of the actors do well in their roles with Jordan and Edwards carrying most of the dramatic weight, while on a more prurient level, fans of East Coast hardcore will have fun spotting a who's who of participants in that big sex party scene including Jamie Gillis, Marc Stevens, Alan Marlow, Tia von Davis, Sandy Fox, Ginger Snaps, and Leo Lovemore. Weirdest of all, Last House fans will definitely be disoriented hearing some of David Hess' musical work for that film getting recycled here in a very, very different context.

Given that Craven was very recognizable in this film, it wasn't hard to guess that he was the "Abe Snake" credited as the director even if the title didn't appear on his official filmographies until fairly recently. Another factor was the fact that this was a very difficult film to see after its theatrical release unless you hunted down the VCA videotape release, which looked awful and was brutally cut to the point of incoherent. Technically it ran five minutes shorter, but the damage ran deeper than that since it also replaced the entire opening scene (a spooky bit with Craven walking the child version of Angela into the woods) with ugly video-generated credits. The '80s were notoriously heavy on video censorship so anything transgressive here had to go, including a large chunk of the first Elizabeth and Roger meeting (involving public water sports) and the film's most infamous moment near the end, a brief gag involving actor Lefty Cooper and a dead fish.

The 2025 Blu-ray from Quality X via Mélusine marks the first-ever uncut release of the film in any home video format, taken from what's listed as a 4K scan of its best surviving film elements. The presentation looks great, especially given its taken from film prints, featuring the title The Fireworks Man at the beginning and presented at the ideal 1.33:1 aspect ratio. The DTS-HD MA 2.0 English mono audio sounds clean and solid, with optional English SDH subtitles provided. In addition to two trailers (one as The Fireworks Woman, the other as The Fireworks Man), the disc features two new featurettes, both of which are outstanding and among the most essential you'll see this year. Joseph Maddrey, author of the excellent The Soul of Wes Craven, delivers "Ugly People Doing Ugly Things: Wes Craven and The Fireworks Woman Saga" (28m44s), an in-depth and illuminating look at the film via the shards of evidence out there including the shooting script (with a connection to Norman Mailer, believe it or not), dissecting the elements of Craven's own upbringing and his state of mind at the time that filtered into the final result. Definitely do not skip this one. Then Roy Frumkes of Street Trash fame (and the guy responsible for saving the Last House outtakes) appears for a 10m31s interview about his '70s times with Craven (including Tales That'll Tear Your Heart Out), the career struggles the director was facing at the time, and a lengthy, hilarious account of his one visit to the set of this film (with his wife!) for the orgy scene.

Reviewed on October 23, 2025