Plot Details: This opinion reveals minor details about the movie's plot.

My relationship with horror goes back to childhood. It was a fairytale in a deliciously twisted children’s anthology that really got to me—giants with big shoes and scruffy faces invaded my dreams. I was truly and completely terrified and was convinced that these behemoths had somehow wedged themselves beneath my bed or into my cramped closet.

I’ve grown up a lot since then. My taste in horror has also matured. I love the whole blood, guts, and gore thing more even than the traditional monster movie. I’m a fan of human terror—oh yes, and terror as brought on by puzzle boxes that open portals to hell. That aside, it would have been lax of me not to conduct an in-depth investigation of the slasher movies that precluded the current crop of low budget, quick turnover horror. One such early movie is the apparently classic 1972 movie Last House on the Left.

To avoid fainting, keep repeating "It's only a movie...It's only a movie..."

I lifted the unassuming, cheaply packaged DVD off the shelf. It was only $7. I knew what the Wes Craven flick was about and knew I wouldn’t be offended or even particularly shocked. However since it held such a prominent place in the annuls of horror filmmaking history I decided to buy it blindly. Whether or not Last House on the Left would live up to my considerable expectations was about to be tested.

At the time this movie was filmed, Craven was an unknown director. The only bullet on his resume was a 1971 sex movie by the name of Together (co-directed by Sean S. Cunningham who went on to do Friday the 13th). It was met with success in adult theaters and peepshows and allotted the burgeoning director a budget to complete his first real movie (also with some help from Cunningham again), Last House on the Left. However I do hesitate to call this a “real” movie. It comes more across as a half hearted, badly acted, and badly planned exploitive grindhouse thriller. While today it may seem tongue-in-cheek, I don’t think Craven had those intentions. It’s campy and hollow—the perfect fodder for drive in theaters.

Last House on the Left begins simply enough—a naked teenager in the shower. Mari Collingwood (Sandra Cassel) is a beautiful and virginal seventeen year-old girl. She is just beginning to understand herself and is particularly fascinated with her own budding breasts. This fact the audience is greeted with immediately as her shirt is rather impractically transparent. She, along with her equally gorgeous friend Phyllis Stone (Lucy Grantham), is spreading her wings and has decided to embark on a day of fun. The two ridiculously naïve girls seek out some pot, and in the process land themselves in a heap of trouble.

Marijuana (note the similarity to the name Mari) is the trap that three murderers use to trap the two girls. They, not surprisingly, take advantage of the situation. The girls are trapped and forced to engage in a variety of lewd acts. The movie spins out of control as their captors Krug Stillo (David Hess), Weasel Podowski (Fred J. Lincoln), Junior Stillo (Marc Sheffler), and Sadie (Jeramie Rain) become drunk with power and promise. It’s a nasty, sexual, degrading, insane, and twisted. It’s the uncomfortable kind of thing to which I am usually drawn. However I don’t really like Last House on the Left at all.

I don’t think anybody will enjoy the middle part of the movie. Unless, of course, you are fond of brutal rape, murder, and degradation in which case I may have to really worry about your sanity. At the same time that this is true, it is this part that people are most familiar with—it is this part that is memorable. The rest of the movie (including the anticlimactic ending) is mostly forgettable. Suffice it to say that the four murderous criminals end up in a place they never expected and meet a fate they never anticipated. There is more blood and murder and even a little penis-biting for those of you who are into revenge.

Craven loosely based his story on the Ingmar Bergman movie The Virgin Spring (1960). It does certainly incorporate the tale of caution from the original movie, but it lacks the sharpness of Bergman’s direction. That shouldn’t come as a surprise—Craven really was a virgin filmmaker at the time. However where I do really find fault in the movie is not with the story. Sure my interest in it waxes and wanes, but it is the hokey costumes, ridiculous and overdone dialogue, and unnecessary humor that sink it. Even worse is that the characters seem to act nonsensically and without motivation. Last House on the Left has “funny” moments (like those involving the bumbling cops) but it by and large takes itself much too seriously. The message appears to be simple: be a good girl and the evil misogynous rapists won’t get you. I’m sure Craven intended it to be a sarcastic statement, but in the end this is all I take from this dreadfully black and dour movie.

There is probably still value in Last House on the Left. It was indeed one of the first movies of this slasher/grindhouse/gore/sexual perversion variety to ever get a real mainstream release. It paved the way for a whole host of other movies in the 1970s through today including Craven’s own 1977 flick The Hills Have Eyes. While I don’t think that Last House on the Left is even a vaguely decent movie because of the editing, script, and even costumes it deservedly holds a spot in the history of horror cinema.

Unlike my childhood nightmares, these monsters don’t hide in closets, under beds, or in fairytales. There are murderers with compulsions like these walking among us and it is for this specific reason that Last House on the Left should really be terrifically scary. It is most unfortunate that Craven doesn’t deliver.

Recommended: No

Viewing Format: DVD
Suitability For Children: Not suitable for Children of any age