The man exudes psychosis.
He's no Steve Railsback (another fine actor who can project perfect lunacy) acting-wise, but Hess can make my skin crawl without saying a word. The man has the sort of face that projects wrongness. From hitching a ride with Franco Nero and Corinne Clery or hanging in a swamp with Adrienne Barbeau, when Mr. Hess appears on the screen, you can guarantee someone is going to get raped or sliced or punched.
But Mr. Hess is more than meets the eye.
This portrayer of the unhinged is truly a jack-of-all-artistic trades.
His career is outlandishly amazing!
He lends a particularly untouchable vileness to his portrayal of Krug Stillo - one of the group psychotics in the original Last House on the Left (1972).
He uses a more gentle touch when it came to the songs he wrote and sang for that film's soundtrack:
Six years before that, Elvis Presley recorded one of his ("Sand Castles") compositions. The film is on the soundtrack LP to Elvis' film, Paradise, Hawaiian Style, but it was not used in the film.
The next time you see Hess making like a lunatic in a film remember that the fellow on the screen once composed a song with lyrics that mention a crab playing a violin on the back of a dancing whale.
It might make you feel better.
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