Here’s my “director’s cut” review of Last House, also available at the online sites of two print publications (scroll to bottom for links).
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The Last House on the Left
Stars Tony Goldwyn, Monica Potter, Garrett Dillahunt. Directed by Dennis Iliadis. Written by Adam Elleca and Carl Ellsworth. 105 minutes. Rated R.
Grade: D
Blame it on the Mansons. Or, rather, the sensationalistic press coverage of that California cult family’s bloody 1969 killing spree in the Hollywood hills. Three years later, Wes Craven combined the home-invasion theme with story inspiration from Ingmar Bergman’s The Virgin Spring, and attached a happy — okay, just satisfyingly vengeful — ending, whereby the killers paid for their sins before going to hell.
The resultant low-budget horror thriller, The Last House on the Left, attracted wide notoriety and generated censorship challenges for Craven and producer Sean S. Cunningham. The two later helmed franchise starters A Nightmare on Elm Street and Friday the 13th, respectively; they deserve partial blame for slasher films and, by extension, that genre’s spawn, torture porn.
Still stomach-turning after all these years, Last House is back, with a suspenseful and well-made if utterly gruesome remake produced by Craven and Cunningham. The graphic violence is facilitated by a microwave, a garbage disposal, a hammer, a fireplace poker, and pistols, among other sharp objects, household appliances and standard weapons.
Director Dennis Iliadis (Hardcore) handily establishes the setting, a roomy, lived-in lake house owned by friendly, caring physician John Collingwood (Tony Goldwyn) and his coolly efficient wife Emma (Monica Potter), who are still reeling from the loss of their son Ben.
The idyllic retreat comes complete with separate guest lodging and a little red boat house. Later, one of the baddies, envying the family’s comfortable lifestyle, asks Emma, “How many houses do you own?” So are the filmmakers commenting on extreme class warfare, as demonstrated when the have nots, represented by these out-of-luck thugs, attempt to forcibly take what they want, including a well-to-do family’s child and home?
As in the original, two girls, the Collingwoods’ daughter Mari (Sara Paxton) and her friend Paige (Martha MacIsaac) are out enjoying themselves — this time, getting high on “premium weed” with a shy young guy, Justin (Spencer Treat Clark), they befriend at a small-town convenience store — when they unwittingly stumble into hard-as-nails criminals.
The latter trio’s bloodlust has already been established in a quick prologue, during which one of the nasties escapes from the confines of a police car.
Justin’s dad, Krug (Garret Dillahunt) is the vicious, nominally handsome leader of the gang, which also includes his more hyperactive brother, Francis (Aaron Paul) and their bisexual sidekick Sadie (Riki Lindhome). Krug decides that he can’t let the girls live, and takes them deep into the woods to do his dirty work.
Iliadis creates genuine dread and suspense during the run-up to the attack on the girls, and over the course of the extended battle between the Collingwoods and the cretins. Two moments are striking due to the impressive intensity of the actors’ performances — first, when Justin is physically sickened after seeing a photo of one of the brutalized girls, and second, when the Collingwoods are struck with bewilderment, sheer terror and then righteous anger after realizing that their daughter’s attackers are right there, under their noses, in the guest house across the way. Yep, the predators are about to become the prey.
Then again, there’s the torture sequence, an uncomfortably extended ordeal that’s shot rather matter-of-factly, with the camera mostly unblinking as the victims are variously punched, knifed and raped by their captors. After being made voyeuristically complicit in the relentless debasement of women and then being asked to exult in the subsequent gory payback, some viewers are likely to feel brutalized and debased themselves. Just asking, but, who was this movie made for, and why?
An ugly, mean-spirited exploitation film is an ugly, mean-spirited exploitation film, even when informed by a certain fondness for the lore and conventions of an oddly cherished genre.
Handy review quote for studio publicists in need of a blurb: Last House is the must-miss movie of the season.
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Read this review (shorter version) in Las Vegas City Life here.