The Last House on the Left
by Wes Craven
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DVD details
Actor: David Hess, Fred J. Lincoln, Jeramie Rain, Lucy Grantham, Sandra PeabodyDirector: Wes Craven
Brand: Metro Goldwyn Mayer DVD
Cinematographer: Victor Hurwitz
Writer: Wes Craven
Producer: Katherine D'Amato
Producer: Sean S. Cunningham
Producer: Steve Dwork
Producer: Steve Miner
Writer: Ulla Isaksson
DVD: Region Code 1
Audio: English (Original Language), Unknown
Format: Anamorphic, Closed-captioned, Color, DVD, NTSC, Widescreen
Picture Format: 1.85:1
Running Time: 84 minutes
DVD Release Date: 2002-08-27
Audience Rating: R (Restricted)
Studio: MGM (Video & DVD)
DVD Reviews of The Last House on the Left
DVD Review: Lame...Boring, Too much ... Circus Benny Hill Music
Summary: 2 Stars
I have already watched the new 2009 version and really liked it. This original version is boring, i actually fell asleep 4 times. I had to stop it and come back to watch the rest the next day. This is supposed to be a horror/thriller movie, but then the benny hill type circus soundtrack is horrible. Some of the scenes are even humorous, like the police officers trying to hitchhike after they ran out of gas. The new modern version is much better. Oh ... and what's with their daughter refusing to wear a bra and showing her breasts in front of her father ... ? That was creepy. DVD Review: Primal Instincts
Summary: 2 Stars
Horror is so broad now as to have an unpredictable turn of events that have the potential to rape your mind and soul while you are passively entertained. Yea, we all wanted revenge, the rape scene as long and vivid as it was did not add to the hard justice delivered in the end and only demonstrates the level of depraved morality we are expected to believe.DVD Review: EXTREMEMLY UNEVEN IN TONE, BUT HAS ITS MOMENTS!
Summary: 2 Stars
I saw this film at the drive-in many years ago and despite its following I have never been a big fan of this film. Watching it now I have confirmed my earlier opinion that this is not a great film. It's a low budget mess with horrible acting and an inappropriate music score that makes this film almost completely un-watch-able! That's not to say that this film doesn't have its moments, it's just too little too late.
The film is full of inconsistencies and goes from truly disturbing to ridiculous comedy in the blink of an eye. This is really sad because this film could have been so much better if Wes Craven had kept the tone more even. The rape and killings are pretty brutal for when it was released and it isn't an easy film to watch at times.
I also have to compare this film to much better horror films from the same time period such as The Texas Chainsaw Massacre which is far superior and even though it's a low budget film it really works for the most part and the actors seem to be more believable. I realize that this film came out a couple of years before it, but Chainsaw is a much more satisfying horror outing.
I give some props for being one of the first films of this nature, but it isn't as good as its reputation. I don't know anything about this special edition nor do I care. If this is your cup of tea then by all means buy it!
DVD Review: Last House on the Left
Summary: 1 Stars
I has seen this movie when it came out in 1972, this was suppose to show "never before seen scenes" ! Well it didn't !!!! There were scenes left out ! This was the worst purchase I ever made,,,I was real dissappointed. DVD Review: Dumb
Summary: 2 Stars
I've heard quite a bit about Wes Craven's 1972 debut film "Last House on the Left" over the years and finally decided to see what the hoopla was all about.
PLOT (Spoilers!): "Last House" is a simple rape/murder/revenge horror flick about two Connecticut girls who go to the big city to catch a rock concert, but they look for pot in the wrong place and end up kidnapped, humiliated, tortured, raped and killed. When the father & mother of one of the victims find out they set out to take revenge; the culprits aren't hard to find 'cause they're, coincidently, overnight guests in their house!
This is, apparently, a loose remake of Ingmar Bergman's "Virgin Spring" (1960), albeit in a modern America setting.
WHAT WORKS: Aside from the brief Manhattan scenes, the woodsy Connecticut locations are great (Westport & Redding); the three female actors are cute; and the diversified score (by the actor playing Krug) is entertaining even while a lot of it is incongruous with the material. In addition, the film can be appreciated as an early 70s period piece/oddity or if you're a Craven fan.
Also, if you're a gorehound there's some significant gore, in particular a bloody disembowlment sequence.
WHAT DOESN'T WORK: Wow, this story is really DUMB. I'm not referring to just the goofy aspects, i.e. the two rural policemen, but to the complete implausibility of the storyline: [SPOILER ALERT!] The criminal gang just so happens to break down right in front of the rural house of one of the victims? Why sure! But there's more, way more: After breaking down on some desolate country road the gang decides to take a frolic in the woods where they torment, rape & murder the girls; their clothes are completely bloody but they're able to fully wash up in a scummy pond and deck themselves to the hilt. Where'd they get the soap and towels, etc.? (I didn't see any) Where'd they get the nice dress clothes? Didn't they just escape from prison? Then they knock on the door of the closest house, the house of one of the victims (which they don't realize yet), and her parents cluelessly allow this suspicious foursome to stay overnight, a couple of 'em in their daughters very room -- unbelievable! Keep in mind that their daughter has been missing since the night before and they should be seriously concerned about that, but they're okay enough to allow four weirdo adult strangers to occupy their home -- Why sure! The revenge of the parents is just as ridiculous. [END SPOILER]. As noted above, many of these scenes are combined with an unfitting goofy score, which makes them all the more absurd. Really, the story is so ridiculous it's as if a 13 year-old came up with the plot but, no, it was written/directed by Wes Craven, a full-fledged adult with degrees in writing & psychology -- unbelievable.
With this understanding, how can the viewer possibly take the story serious? Which is why I find it strange that some people call this "the most disturbing film ever made," etc. If the material is absurd it can't truly be disturbing because it can't be taken seriously. Is the violence in the Road Runner disturbing? No. Why? Because it's a cartoon and it's preposterous. "Last House" may not be a cartoon but it's the same principle because it's just as preposterous.
The reason 1978's "I Spit On Your Grave" works, for what it is, is because it's presented to the viewer in a serious, realistic manner (well, except for parts of the revenge scenes in the last 20 minutes -- but even those sequences are believable compared to the inanities of "Last House"). Consequently, "I Spit On Your Grave" is disturbing, "Last House" is not.
One may defend the film on the grounds that it was the first of its kind as far as gore goes. I don't think so. "Night of the Living Dead" came out four years earlier and has more gore, albeit in black & white. "Night" is a thousand times more disturbing and horrifying because, again, it takes the material serious.
Some may object to how sick & sadistic the criminal scumbags are, but they're supposed to be appalling because this is a rape/murder/revenge horror flick. It comes with the territory.
BOTTOM LINE: I generously give "Last House" 2/5 Stars for the positive elements noted above but, really, this is one of the dumbest flicks I've ever seen. I find it hard to believe it ever got a green light. You gotta see it to believe it, meaning it's definitely worthwhile as an early 70s curiosity.
The film runs 84 minutes and the original cut 91 minutes.
Description of The Last House on the Left
Bold, powerful and starkly realistic, this chilling cinematic debut of horror master Wes Craven (Scream) is a shocking journey into the heart of evil. Written and directed with almost unbearable dramatic tension (Chicago Sun-Times), The Last House on the Left will make you deadbolt your doors and frantically mutter: It's only a movie it's only a movie it's only a movie! Easy-going Mari Collingwood and her fun-loving friend Phyllis are on their way to a Bloodlust concert to celebrate Mari's 17th birthday when three escaped convicts kidnap and torture them. But Mari and Phyllis are fighters, and although they are drugged and beaten into unconsciousness, stuffed into a car trunk and driven into the woods for even more brutality, they are still alive...but for how long?Future Nightmare creator and Scream weaver Wes Craven's film debut is a primitive little production that rises above its cut-rate production values and hazy, grainy patina via its grimly affecting portrait of human evil infiltrating a middle-class household. The story is adapted from Ingmar Bergman's The Virgin Spring, but the film has more in common with Sam Peckinpah's Straw Dogs as it charts the descent of a harmless married couple into methodical killers. A quartet of criminals--a distorted version of the nuclear family--kidnaps a pair of teenage girls and proceeds to ravage, rape, torture, and finally brutally murder them in the woods, unwittingly within walking distance of their rural home. The killers take refuge in the girls' own home, but when the parents discover just who they are and what they've done, they plot violent retribution.
Along with George Romero's Night of the Living Dead and Tobe Hooper's Texas Chainsaw Massacre, Craven helped redefine American horror with this debut--all three movies portray modern society crumbling into madness and horror. But, unlike his fellow directors, Craven gives his film an uncomfortable verisimilitude, setting it squarely in the heartland of modern America. While at times it's awkward and inconsistent, with distracting comic interludes, his handling of the brutal horror scenes is unsettling, and the death of the daughter is an unexpectedly quiet and lyrical moment. --Sean Axmaker
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