The Last House on the Left
The Last House on the Left
The Last House on the Left
Directed by:
Wes CravenCinematography:
Victor HurwitzComposer:
David HessCast:
Sandra Cassel, Lucy Grantham, David Hess, Fred J. Lincoln, Jeramie Rain, Marc Sheffler, Martin Kove, Jonathan Craven, Cynthia Carr, Richard TowersPlots(1)
On the eve of her 17th birthday, Mari and friend Phyllis set off from her family home to the big city to attend a concert by shock-rockers Bloodlust. Attempting to pick up some marijuana on the way, the pair run afoul of a group of vicious crooks, headed up by the sadistic and depraved Krug (David Hess). Gagged and bound, the young women are bundled into a car trunk and driven to the woods, where the gang subject them to a terrifying ordeal of sexual humiliation, torture and murder. Unleashed on an unsuspecting public in 1972, The Last House on the Left shocked audiences with its graphic and unflinching portrayal of interpersonal violence, paving the way for a whole host of cheap imitators looking to capitalise on its success. It is Wes Craven's original alone, however, that remains one of the true watershed moments in horror (and indeed, film) history. (Arrow Films)
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Reviews (2)
Does a parent have the right to execute their child’s murderer? This is a topic for extensive discussion and a subject for a serious film (see Ingmar Bergman’s The Virgin Spring). The problem here is that director Wes Craven and producer Sean S. Cunningham didn’t want to make a serious film. Instead, they mix sexual humiliation and shocking violence with happy hippie music and the comical performances of half-witted small-town cops. And though they interestingly demolish the stylistic clichés of films of the flower-child era, they drown their work in the mire of cheap provocation with their amateurish filmmaking.
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2.5* rather. This film’s biggest problem was my expectations of radical and raw horror, the kind that would be unbearable for people of a weaker nature. What I got instead was some sort of harsher crime-drama that is deliberately lightened-up in every other scene. On paper, the behaviour of the victims, the killers and the parents may look credible, but most of the performances are so terrible that the characters have hardly any effect on the viewer (and it could have been very impressive if at least the parents transmitted sadness, despair or rage). The comedy relief by the two incompetent cops is something I wish I hadn’t seen, it’s hard to imagine anything more out of place in a film like this.
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