Mike_Bracken's Full Review: Last House on the Left
Last House on the Left: Sean S. Cunningham Films/ Vestron Video Rating: USA: R/ USA: Unrated/ UK: Banned/ Australia: Banned
Few films have earned the infamous reputation bestowed upon Wes Craven’s (A Nightmare on Elm Street) directorial debut, the 1972 exploitation classic, Last House on the Left—and for good reason. Last House is an unrelentingly brutal film—chock full of disturbing subject matter and a level of sleaziness unseen in the slick films of today.
Based loosely on Bergman’s The Virgin Spring, Last House on the Left tells an intriguing and upsetting story about the evil that lurks in the hearts of all men. Mari (Sandra Cassell) and Phyllis (Lucy Grantham), two young teenaged girls, are on their way to a concert in the city. When they decide that they need to purchase some marijuana, they run into Krug (David Hess: House on the Edge of the Park), Weasel (Fred Lincoln, who has made the rest of his career in the porn industry), Sadie (Jeramie Rain), and Junior (Marc Sheffler). Krug and Weasel are two rapists/murderers who’ve just broken out of prison and are seriously bad guys (we know this because a radio announcer provides a bunch of expository "news" about the prison break. Of course, if you need more proof than that, Craven provides it—showing Krug popping a young child’s balloon with his cigar…it just doesn’t get much meaner than that.)
Krug and company humiliate and beat the young girls—scenes that Craven intercuts with a series of shots of Mari’s parents, Dr. and Mrs. Collingwood (Gaylord St. James, Cynthia Carr) preparing for a surprise party for their daughter. Krug and his crew head for the Canadian border, stashing the two girls in their trunk. However, the car breaks down in a rural area—right near Mari’s house. Krug takes the girls into the forest, subjects them to more humiliation, and eventually murders them both. Without a ride, the monsters wind up at Mari’s home—and when her parents discover what they’ve done, all hell breaks loose.
The film isn’t very stylish, as Craven shoots a lot of the scenes like they were for a television show. Compounding the problems are the first act’s terrible acting (it’s really bad) and Craven’s indecisiveness as a filmmaker. The idea of intercutting the brutal beatings with the party preparations doesn’t really work—yeah, I understand the dichotomy between happiness and fear, but the cross cuts ultimately pull the viewer out of the sequences. To be fair, Craven himself admits to being more than uncomfortable by the amount of brutality in the film. Perhaps these cross cuts were a subliminal attempt to break up the mood.
Craven does an admirable job of handling the film in the middle and final acts, though. Here, the film becomes quite intense and very disturbing as we watch Krug, Sadie, and Weasel humiliate, torture, and finally murder the young girls. These are evil men, no different than you could find in countless other horror and exploitation films, but Craven makes them utterly despicable. You never feel anything other than revulsion for Krug and his companions, and the violence they commit is never glamorized. It’s almost as if Craven were making a violent film to demonstrate just how ugly real violence often is—and it works.
Last House on the Left is actually a multi-layered movie, one with a lot of ideas and themes that would turn up in later Craven films. There’s a definite class struggle happening here, with the lower class Krug battling the wealthy doctor at the film’s climax. Perhaps the most interesting thing about the battle is that the doctor and his wife—a firmly upper middle class family—are reduced to the level of their daughter’s murderers. Craven would return to explore this dynamic in The Hills Have Eyes.
Other things worth noting include Krug’s name—Craven would give his most infamous film creation a very similar name, Freddy Krueger. Krug kills children, Krueger kills children. During the film’s climax, the doctor booby traps his house before confronting Krug—in A Nightmare on Elm Street Nancy does the same thing before her final battle with Freddy. And while none of this really affects the film, it is interesting to note these things when looking at Craven’s body of work as a whole.
Of course, the film is not without its flaws. Craven’s script is a mess, alternating between brutal violence and really bad comedy (provided by the local sheriff and his deputy—the deputy none other than a very young Martin Kove of Karate Kid fame) that really kills the mood. The final act, while very interesting, has a contrived feel to it—yes, you have to get the killers to the parent’s house, but the method which Craven uses seems a bit too coincidental, as does the way the parents discover that their guests are killers.
Of course, none of these flaws are as unforgivable as the score. Last House on the Left features the worst, most out of place, film score I’ve ever heard. Banjo music plays during a rape scene, the main theme is a weird little ditty with lyrics that tell the plot, and the whole thing is so corny that it’s almost unendurable. Hess himself provided much of the music—proving that he should stick to acting.
Aside from being Craven’s first film, this movie has an interesting horror lineage. Producer Sean S. Cunningham would later direct Friday the 13th. Assistant editor Steve Miner would direct F13 parts 2 and 3, as well as Halloween H20 and Lake Placid.
As I’ve mentioned throughout, the film is violent and disturbing. Hess is wonderful as Krug—a brutal thug who you will come to loathe. After watching his performance, I wanted to take a shower—he’s that sleazy.
The gore is intense if a bit understated. There are numerous prints of this film floating around out there. The R rated US release runs roughly 81 minutes, and cuts the most disturbing gore. The US unrated cut is 82 minutes and features more gore, but isn’t completely uncut. Reportedly, there’s an even longer Canadian cut of the film that’s unrated and features more gore—including an intestine scene that’s never been in the domestic releases. I’ve never seen a print of this Canadian version, but I’ve been assured it does exist. At any rate, find the US unrated version if you plan on seeing this film.
In the end, Last House on the Left demonstrates that it’s very deserving of its classic status. It’s a powerful and disturbing exploitation film that manages to push the audience's buttons throughout. You can’t watch this film and not feel disturbed, or repulsed, or just plain sleazy. It’s a film that’s certainly flawed, yet it works anyway. I wouldn’t recommend Last House on the Left to anyone other than hardcore exploitation fans (which I am)—it’s just too unwholesome for mainstream consumption.
Horror - general DVD - Horror master Wes Craven's powerful debut was this controversial low-budget remake of Ingmar Bergman's The Virgin Spring (1959)...More at Barnes and Noble
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