The Last House on the Left
Release Date - August 30, 1972
Directed by Wes Craven
Starring - Sandra Cassel, Lucy Granthem, David A. Hess, Fred Lincoln, Jeramie Rain, and Marc Sheffler
" It's only a movie, it's only a movie, it's only a movie..."
To kick off out second week of Hell-O-Ween, we're going to do something controversial and edgy, in fact, both movies reviewed this week fall into those categories. So for the first entry in week 2 A.K.A. Controversy week, I picked out one of the most controversial horror films of all time. It was the first X Rated movie I ever saw that wasn't porn or hentai, and it's from my favorite director. Ladies and gentlemen, Last House on the Left...the original.
Last House was released in 1972 and was written and directed by first timer Wes Craven and was produced by his good pal Sean S. Cunningham. The two would later shoot up in horror stardom, as Cunningham went on to create the Friday the 13th series, and Craven went on to create some of the most popular horror films ever with The Hills Have Eyes, the Nightmare on Elm Street franchise, and the Scream series. The two originally collaborated on Cunnigham's film Together, and were later asked by Hallmark Releasing to do a horror film. Wes went off and would return with the script for Last House, which was originally titled Night of Vengeance.
Last House shares a lot in common with Ingmar Bergman's 1960 film The Virgin Spring. In fact, Craven has pretty much said the film was inspired by Bergman's. So in a slightly odd way, one could consider Last House to be a remake of sort. But we aren't here to talk about Swedish films. We're here to talk about this film. So let's shut up and do so.
So the movie begins with a mailman driving up to a house that's set in the woods. After shifting through the resident's mail (seriously is he allowed to do that?), we get our title screen, which is shots of a teenage girl showering. This girl is our main character, Mari. After she's done showering. she goes downstairs and talks with her parents. The conversations ranges from what she's doing tonight for her birthday, to her nipples. No seriously, they spend a good minute or two talking about her nipples. After all that nip talk is done, her dad gives her a peace sign necklace, and she heads off for some fun.
Before she goes off to have fun though, she meets up with her friend Phyllis. They go down to a river and manage to fish up a bottle of alcohol. I guess water can make people stupid according to this movie since it seems you can just fish up alcohol. They drink a little bit, and talk more about breasts (serious Craven had a thing for breasts back then didn't he). Once they finish, they drive off into the night to go to a concert. And it just so happens that right as they start driving, a news bulletin comes over the radio that dangerous criminals have broken out of jail. Can you foreshadowing?
 |
| She already looks drunk, does she really need more? |
So before they go to the concert, Mari and Phyllis have some ice cream, and decide they should get some drugs, because this is the 70s and drugs combined with rock concerts is all the rage with the kiddies. They find Junior hanging outside the building where he's staying and ask if he has any grass. At first he says no and that he doesn't know about that stuff. But after a moment, he says that he does, and invites them into his building.
This is of course, and say it with me now, A TRAP! So they go to the Manson...I mean Stilo family room, and proceed to get themselves locked in. Once there, Krug and gang start to taunt them for trying to get grass, with Weasel even mooing at them. Eventually, they start to undress Phyllis for a little fun, and with this, we get jokes about chicken breasts (seriously Craven?). When Phyllis spits at them, Weasel goes to cut her up, but Krug stops him. He says that there are other ways to get their point across, which results in him punching her square in the stomach.
I should mention that in between all of this kidnapping and female abuse, we get shots of Mari's parents decorating the house for her birthday, as well as them making the cake. It seems Last House was trying to have as much variety as possible. I mean it's got comedy, how to instructions on cooking, it's got a bit of a teenage story...oh, and it's also a notorious rape revenge horror film. It's got everything!
Anyways, back to the R&R film. So morning comes and Krug and gang decide it's time to ditch this dumpy little town, and they bring the girls with them. They drive along a road that leads them into a forest. As they drive, they listen to music, talk about crime, and while I'm not entirely sure, Krug and Sadie seem to be having sex as she's constantly bouncing on his lap as they drive. Between these driving scenes, we get introduced to the worse characters of the movie, the sheriff and deputy. Seriously, these two characters suck majorly. They meet up with Mari's parents, and explain that she's just probably out drunk or drugged and that she'll be home soon. Yeah, that's exactly what I want to hear from police officers when my kid is missing. They say that they'll look around and then leave.
Eventually, the gang pulls over because they feel like having some fun. They pull out the girls, and drag them into the forest. At this point, both Mari and the viewer discover that they are parked directly in front of Mari's house, and that the girls are being taken across the street. This is truly terrifying, as obviously, Mari could make a quick run for it, or even scream to try and get some attention. She attempts at one point to do so, even encouraging Junior to come with her, but it doesn't end well. We'll get to that later though.
So the roughians take the girls out into the woods, and for a bit of fun decide to make them do whatever they want. If they resist they die. The first thing they decide to make them do is piss themselves. Yeah I guess Krug has a urine fetish..nah I'm just joking. The whole idea is that the villains will embarrass the girls for their own amusement, so making them piss them self is a good way to do so. If you can force them to do a bodily function at your command, then you pretty much control them as a whole, and thus humiliate them. Mari doesn't do it, however Phyllis does after getting yelled out by Krug. With the pissing done, they decide for a more, intimate humiliation, as they force the girls to strip and have sex with each other. Once again, this scene works with the idea of the gang trying to humiliate them for their own entertainment. In fact, probably the best moment (in my opinion) of the movie happens here. As Phyllis strips Mari, Mari is crying uncontrollably, and for good reason too. To calm her down, Phyllis brings her in close and says "It's only you and me here, only us." The way she delivers the line is juts perfect to me, and thus as I said makes for what is in my opinion, the best scene in the movie.
I should note that in between these "woods" scenes, we get more scenes of the stupid cops. They play checkers talk about a guy and his chicken, try to hitch a ride from a group of teenagers and a chicken lady...yeah, these scenes are painful to watch. The cake baking scenes were odd, but gave a nice comparison to the horrors the girls were facing, and the unknowing glee of the parents. The cop scenes however are horrendously awful, unfunny, and slightly ruin the whole tone of the scenes they're placed between. If the idea was to break up the horror with comedy, that's all good and well, but at least make the comedy good. Not a fucking unfunny stupid mess that destroy the dark tone you had going.
When we finally get back to Mari and friends, Phyllis decides to run off to give Mari a chance to get away. Mari and Junior stay behind as Krug and the others rush after Phyllis. Phyllis manages to get to a graveyard, but gets cornered bu Weasel, Sadie, and Krug who is now holding a machete. They corner Phyllis up against a tree, and well, begin to cut her up something fierce. After cutting her open for a minute or two they then...disembowel her. That's...pretty gruesome for 1972. This scene goes on for a little bit, but when they're finished, they look down at their bloody hands and stained clothes before heading back to Junior and Mari. | ||
| Sadie: "That's a nice looking machete you got there stud." Krug: "Chicks dig the machete." |
Well if you remember, when I stated earlier about how close they are to the Collingwood's house (Mari's last name is Collingwood), Mari at one point convinces Junior to run off with her to try and make it back home. Well they get close, not close enough as Krug and company catch up to them. Deciding that he could use a little fun, Krug knocks her (Mari) down and begins to rape her. After raping her, Krug takes out a knife and carves his name into her chest. Just...ouch. I've talked about how some of the things Krug is doing is humiliating to the girls, but this is just sadistically assy. He pretty much guaranteed that anytime she looks down at her chest, she'll be remembered of what he did to her and that anybody who looks at her will known his name. That's some deep psychological mind fucking. Well afterwords, Mari has finally figured out that it doesn't matter what happens, she's going to die. She gets up from the ground where she was laying and walks into the lake as the gang just stares at each other, she waiting for it to all be ended. Krug makes a motion to Weasel, who in return hands him a gun. Krug cocks it back, and after a few more moments, shoots Mari right in the backish shoulder area.
After a few more painful cop scenes, the villains wash the blood off of themselves and head back to the car. The car won't start, and they decide they need a place to spend the night. Well after looking around rather shortly, they discover Mari's house. So they dress themselves up in some nice attire and go a knocking on the door. Mari's mother and father let them in and after a while, the group sits down for a dinner. However, the Collingwoods become suspicious of their guests because, well I guess because they don't have the best table manners (thank you Cinema Snob for that joke). They don't really explain why. Anyways, when the Manson family goes upstairs, they discover that they're staying in Mari's room, and shortly afterwords figure out who exactly Mari is.
Well as long as it takes Krug and company to figure out whose house this air, Mari's mother figures out that they killed Mari. How? Because she comes to help Junior when he's throwing up, and notices that he's wearing a pace sign necklace, and apparently she can tell that it's Mari's somehow? Well that, and she discovers the gang's bloody clothing. Because of this, the couple goes out to the woods for no unexplained reason where they find Mari as she is dying. Before she dies, she confirms who killed her while being held by her parents. After that, they decide to get revenge. Apparently, they left her body behind. Because getting revenge is more important then protecting your daughter's corpse.
Once back home, they get to work setting up some traps for the killers. Meanwhile, Weasel is busy having a nightmare that involves the Collingwoods dressed up in their doctor gear (yeah I forgot to mention that the mister is a doctor) as they hammer his teeth out. OUCH! Imagine if all dentists did that. Well due to this, he can't sleep and goes downstairs where he meets Mrs. Collingwood. After a bit of smalltalk, Weasel manages to get her to give him a blow job. So they go outside to do so, and for a while, it's just your normal blow scene. And then she bites down on his dick and rips it off.
Weasel's screaming wakes the rest of the gang up, helped in no part by Mr. Collingwood barging into the room with a shotgun. Krug escapes the bedroom, and makes it to the living room as the good doctor catches up with him. The two struggle for a little bit, but are soon interrupted by Junior, who is now brandishing a gun, it being pointed at his daddy. Junior looks like he's going to kill his papa, but Krug in the end is able to manipulate him into shooting himself.
During this, Sadie runs outside but is tackled by Mrs.Collingwood. The two struggle for a little bit, but Sadie eventually gets away and runs into the pool which looks really filthy. The misses then picks up a knife that Sadie drop when she was tackled and rushes up to Sadie. She slits her throat, and Sadie dies. Inside the house, Mr. Collingwood breaks out a chainsaw, and after some cat and mouse games, cuts down Krug right as the sheriff comes into the house. As his deputy comes in, so does the wife. The couple sit together while the police look around the scene, their vendetta taken.
Thus concludes Last House on the Left. All in all, it's a good, but flawed film. For a film 1972, it still has a lasting impact in both the world of horror films, and in film as a whole. This was for the most part the first horror movie of it's kind for the 70's. It was gritty, it was realistic, all of this in a time when monster movies were still the norm. Zombies were starting to creep out, but for the most part, there wasn't anything brutal like the films we have today. Before I Spit on Your Grave had audiences feeling disgusted, there was Last House, which led the way for many a film after.
The way the film is shot is actually one of the things that makes it so impactful. Craven filmed the movie as if it was a documentary, so the grittiness and hard hitting impact came from this style. The close up angles, the almost degrading look at times, it just helps engross us the viewer.
The effects used in the film are good as well. There aren't too many, but when they appear, they're great. Actor Fred Lincoln was actually responsible for pretty much all of them. In the documentary Celluloid Crime of the Century, he explains that he told them how to do the disembowelment, how to make it look like the wife was biting his cock off, how to do Junior's suicide scene, how the girls should fight, and how to do the dream sequence. For an actor who primarily did porn, he sure does know his way around special effects. The effects hold up very well, and I myself as a filmmaker have actually taken how to do certain effects from the film. Sure they look tame compared to today's standards, but they still hit you with a very rough sucker punch if you're a first time viewer, or not use to violent films.
The acting is, alright. The standout performances are obviously the gang, with David Hess as Krug stealing the show. You truly do believe he is a crazy fucked up guy who would kill you in a moment's notice. The non gang performances are alright as well. The girls do a great job with the material they have, and while some of the dialogue they have is pretty bad, it does paint them out to be real people...of the 1970s. The parents do a good job as well. You can feel their anger and sadness in the later parts of the film, although in the beginning they aren't that great in my opinion. And of course, the worse performances are the cops, and the chicken lady. I'm not even going to divulge into how shit they are. So as a whole, the acting is good, with about two standout performances, three bad ones, and everybody else doing okay.
As far as the music is concerned, it's, meh. I honestly don't dig the soundtrack. I'm not saying it's bad, I just don't like that folky type of music. It does help set the mood and to a degree atmosphere, and thus does a good job of bringing the viewer into the world of the film more. Fun fact, David Hess who plays Krug also did all of the music for the movie.
In the end, Last House is a great film. It's got good to great acting, a very good visual style, some alright music if you're into it's style, a good story, and great effects. As far as cons go, I'd say that while the acting is mostly good, there are the obvious terrible actors, and even a couple of lines just sound bad, regardless of who says them. The music for me at least is bad, but once again I'm not a folk music type of guy. The only other major complaint I have is the scenes in between all of the nastiness. In the beginning they're tolerable because they give you a good show of how the film does have it's multiple tones, and shows how ignorant the parents are until the end. But, they still ruin the tone as well, as they take you away the horror of what's happening. And then you have the cop scenes, which I already ranted about enough.
All in all, this is a great movie. If you look past it's flaws, you'll have a great viewing experience (then again, you may not agree with my flaws). Definitely worth picking up.
B -
Comments
Post a Comment