The Last House on the Left

U.S.A. / 1972 Directed by Wes Craven Starring David Hess Lucy Grantham Sandra Cassel Color / 84 Minutes / Not Rated Format: DVD (R1 - NTSC) MGM Home Entertainment

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New 2009 Edition

		Review by Brian Lindsey

4     10   10 = Highest Rating

Movies don't kill people. People kill people.     I've never subscribed to the cockamamie line of thought which says that aspects of pop culture — be it book, music, or film — contribute to violence in society. Most recently (the mid '90s), Oliver Stone came under fire from author John Grisham and a cabal of conservative activist groups for his film Natural Born Killers, when a couple of punks charged with murder claimed they were inspired to the deed by watching Stone's movie. Stone was taken to court for foisting a "defective product"(!) on the public, a case which was fortunately tossed out on First Amendment grounds. (I wonder how Grisham would've reacted had some homicidal nutcase been arrested for killing lawyers, citing his obsession with Grisham's legal thrillers as the reason for his murder spree.) Art — and cinema is an art form — is the one human activity in which transgression against "taboo" themes is actually necessary to enrich and invigorate it. If restrained by convention, whether political or cultural, art then withers and eventually dies. Now this isn't to say there aren't any limits, no lines that can't be crossed. There certainly are. Child pornography is illegal, and should be, but not because of what it is; it's socially verboten and criminally actionable because the rights of underage minors are violated in the making of it — such a film isn't itself the "crime", but rather what was done to create it. The same goes for animal cruelty and the so-called Snuff films of urban legend.     So am I ever gonna get to the review? Yes. Wes Craven's 1972 drive-in shocker Last House on the Left is just such a "transgressive" film; indeed, a rather influential one. It outraged a good many people — you know, the types who are quick to condemn that which they've never seen. It also outraged plenty of those who had seen it. I can only imagine the reaction of audiences to it some 30 years ago, even those supposedly jaded by other exploitation pics of the period. I'm sure nothing really prepared them for Last House. The film's stark, documentary-style presentation of senseless, sadistic violence really packs a punch. Moral ambiguity reigns supreme. Expectations are tossed out the window. Uncomfortable questions are raised.     Too bad the movie's not really all that good.     Mari Collingwood (Sandra Cassel) and Phyllis Stone (Lucy Grantham), two teenage girls trying to score some weed before a rock concert in New York City, are kidnapped and abused by a gang of sadistic criminals. This small band of thugs consists of Krug (David Hess), the brutish, psychotic leader of the group; Weasel (Fred Lincoln), a nasty twit with an Elvis pompadour and a penchant for switchblades; Sadie (Jeramie Rain), the gang's vicious moll and 'community lay'; and Junior, Krug's mentally retarded son who helped spring the others from jail. The girls are doomed from the moment they fall into Krug and company's remorseless clutches. Be prepared for a harrowing experience, one all the more disturbing because we know from news headlines that this type of horror can and does happen in real life. No supernatural monsters here, folks... Creatures of myth and legend couldn't be as cruel. Dracula needs your blood to survive; werewolves can't control their animalistic urges; flesh-eating zombies are merely hungry. Krug and his pals rape, torture and kill for no other reason than they can — just for fun. The film's middle section centers on this nihilistic appetite for destruction. When the gang's car breaks down on a rural country road the girls are marched into the adjoining woods to meet their fate. It ain't pretty. Phyllis is made to urinate on herself, then the two girls are stripped naked and forced to "make it" with each other. Mari, a 17-year old virgin, is brutally tortured and raped by Krug. Phyllis is the first to die, stabbed and disemboweled when she's caught after a failed escape attempt. Then it's Mari's turn: Krug shoots her with a pistol when the girl, resigned to her lonely, squalid death, wades into a pond to drown herself. In an astonishing coincidence, the murders take place only a few hundred yards from Mari's home. Her parents, distraught over their missing daughter, are nonetheless charitable to the four strangers who later show up on their doorstep telling of a broken down car. Since the phone's not working they can't call for a tow; the Collingwoods offer to put the four up for the night. (Yeah... Sure they would.) But overheard snatches of conversation and a telltale clue bring Mr. and Mrs. Collingwood to a horrible realization — their daughter's been murdered, her killers now guests in their home. With the phone out of order the police can't be summoned. They must take justice into their own avenging hands.     Last House made waves all out of proportion to its actual quality as a motion picture. (Pairing crude, documentary-style depictions of violence with sensationalistic marketing ballyhoo was bound to have an impact. For an example of how the film was promoted, check out the radio spot MP3 link on the left-hand sidebar.) This was the first feature-length film of Wes Craven, who'd later find fame and fortune with A Nightmare on Elm Street and the Scream franchise. His inexperience naturally shows. That Last House is the handiwork of a novice director, one operating with a virtually nonexistent budget, is not what makes the film a bummer, however. Craven does manage to engineer some compelling moments — made so more by the startling bursts of method acting from an otherwise amateurish cast than anything done by the folks behind the camera. In his portrayal of the repellent Krug, David Hess (who also composed the songs and music for the film) makes an impression as a thoroughly soulless sociopath; he's a fairly scary punk at times. Victims Casell and Grantham are incredibly believable in the torture/murder scenes, upping the horror quotient of these sequences substantially, even if in the beginning of the film their performances are pretty awkward. What really hurts the movie is the writing, which is uniformly bad (Craven wrote the screenplay, too). The basic plot theme, Craven says in the DVD's audio commentary, is his variation on Ingmar Bergman's The Virgin Spring. The lame dialog and ridiculous plot twists are all Craven's, however. He also reports that he was stoned during most of the film's production. Were ya tokin' too much during the writing process, too, Wes? It must've been some killer weed for you to think it'd be believable for Mari's mom — who just found out her daughter's been murdered — to be capable of giving Weasel a blow job (all the way to climax) just so she can exact revenge. (It's the movie's most infamous scene; pretty silly really, but you won't forget it!) How else to excuse the absolutely wretched attempts at humor, most egregiously in the form of the two bumbling cop characters? The "Chicken Truck" scene is so awful I could easily imagine Last House being pilloried for it rather than any depiction of sexualized violence... Plopped right in the middle of a grim and brutal "You Are There" crime story is something you might expect to see in Dolemite. The completely botched attempts at injecting humor — not to mention the terrible dialog throughout — totally kneecap the film's repeat viewing appeal, even for dedicated '70s Exploitation fans like myself. Still, Last House remains an essential experience for anyone truly interested in that period and aspect of cult cinema.

MGM has done a truly excellent job with this rather grungy, sordid little movie.     In terms of A/V quality, this is the best this extremely low budget (shot on 16mm) film is likely to ever look and sound. So if you're expecting a pristine transfer akin to a more modern release, forget it. All in all, the film looks remarkably good given its origins. The Mono audio track is for the most part clear and static-free. Instances of muffled dialog stem from the film's original sound recording. (A 2-sided disc, one can either watch the movie in 1.85:1 anamorphic Widescreen or Fullframe formats.)     The DVD is absolutely loaded with extras considering its low price. Viewers have the option of beginning the film with an on-camera introduction by Craven. The theatrical trailer is included, along with 14 minutes of outtakes and dailies. Forbidden Footage is an 8-minute reel highlighting some of the more notorious sequences in Last House; a longer cut of the disemboweling scene presents a minute or two of additional gore that was trimmed prior to theatrical release. An excellent half-hour long documentary, The Making of Last House On the Left, recounts the production via interviews with Craven, producer Sean S. Cunningham (who went on to direct the original Friday the 13th), production assistant Steve Miner, and stars David Hess, Lucy Grantham, Fred Lincoln, Marc Sheffler, and Martin Kove. Finally, Cunningham and Craven provide a terrific audio commentary track that touches on just about every possible aspect of the film. In turns both funny and serious, their take on just what they had wrought over 30 years ago is as illuminating as it is entertaining. 9/21/02

UPDATE The DVD reviewed here went OOP in 2008. MGM is releasing a new edition on February 24, 2009.

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