LastHouseontheLeft

The Last House on the Left (1972)

It is the early 70s and a couple of girls, Mari and Phyllis, head off into the city for a concert. Along the way they decide they want to buy some weed, and hook up with a guy they meet on the street. But he isn’t a drug dealer and instead of hooking them up he brings them to his father, who is an escaped convict and the rest of the crew. Over the next couple of days they beat, torture, and assault the girls in all sorts of terrible ways. On their way to Canada, with the girls locked in the truck of the car, they break down literally at the end of Mari’s family’s driveway. This brings the gang into the home and eventually Mari’s parents find out what happened to their daughter and take some well-deserved payback.

So if you are the sort of person who is into Exploitation movies then you have heard of The Last House on the Left. The movie has the reputation of being a very disturbing and realistic look at violence, rape, and murder. I have to honestly say after more than 35 years the movie is still a very effective and frightening experience. This realistic view of the crimes against the girls is also I think indirectly the reason why so many people have issues with the movie, and I’m not speaking about the content either. For a film that takes this part of the story so seriously it has a plot twist that is really hard to swallow and some comic relief in the form of local law enforcement that bothers some viewers. I can forgive the bumbling police department because I get the shot that the filmmakers (self professed hippies) were taking at authority figures. So while silly I do get it. Now the plot twist that somehow has the killers car break down in front of one of their victim’s driveway is a bit much. If this were an Argento film where everything was a bit surreal and plot was secondary to imagery then that might work better for me. But I’ll admit it has always bugged me that Craven didn’t find a better way to get the killers to the girl’s house, given how realistic the rest of the film is handled.

The performances in the movie are just incredible, especially given the inexperience of much of the cast. With the exception of Fred Lincoln I don’t think that many of the actors had that much screen experience, and Lincoln’s was mostly in the adult industry. So for them to give performances that grab you and suck you into the movie like this is amazing. David Hess is especially good in the role of Krug, which he would be called on to recreate in movie after movie. Krug is an evil guy, but not in an over the top sort of way. He is completely believable as a character, which makes his actions more frightening.

Speaking of Hess, not only is he great in the role of Krug, but he did the music for the movie as well. The music in Last House is really disturbing. At times it comes off as a normal score, and is what you would expect. But there are other times where the music is upbeat and cheerful, which is completely the opposite of what you are watching on the screen. Every time I watch the movie and get to these scenes I have the same sort of sick feeling to my stomach and cringe, partly due I think to trying to wrap my mind around what I’m seeing opposed to what I’m hearing. The music isn’t the only thing that is done well behind the scenes on Last House on the Left. The camera work is really unique and well done. There is a gritty feel to the movie that comes across, and it is almost like watching documentary or newsreel footage of the events, rather than a movie. According to Craven this is what he was going for and succeeded rather nicely.

This review is for the recent DVD release of The Last House on the Left. Included on the DVD are some extras that I really wanted to mention. The first is a small interview with Wes Craven called Still Standing: The Legacy of the Last House on the Left. It is only 15 minutes long, but is a wonderful interview where Craven discusses writing the script and directing the movie. Some of it can be rather dry as he goes into some depth as to his philosophy of violence and how Vietnam affected his view of the world. Well worth the time to check this out. Also there is a pretty cool short interview with David Hess (Krug), who also wrote all the music for The Last House on the Left. I’m not a musician and some of the interview was over my head, but it was fascinating to see an artist like Hess discusses the choices he made with the music and why. This is only 10 minutes long, but again well worth checking out.

The big special feature that I wanted to talk about is the documentary called Celluloid Crime of the Century (which is a play on some of the dialogue in the movie). This is a rather in depth documentary that runs around 40 minutes long. There are tons of interviews with all involved including Wes Craven (writer/director), Sean S. Cunningham (producer), Fred Lincoln (Weasel), Jeramie Rain (Sadie), Marc Sheffler (Junior), and of course David Hess (Krug). If you ever wanted to know anything about how the movie was written, cast, or shot this is the documentary for you. Everyone is quite candid about some of the tension on set. Including the fact that actress Sandra Cassel (Mari) was terrified of the cast while shooting the movie. Something that David Hess used in his performance (really there is a line in the documentary that had be both laughing and horrified) to great effect. I must warn you that this is from the British DVD release of Last House, so some time is spent discussing censorship (Last House was a video nasty) in England. Still this is a great documentary.

This is a very reasonably priced DVD and is packed full of special features. I already owned the earlier DVD, but would have no second thoughts double dipping for this release. This is a great movie and an even better DVD release (though the updated cover sucks!).

3 ½ out of 4

reviewed by John Shatzer