Review of The Last House on the Left (1972) by Lisa D — 11 May 2012

Still considered one of the most grotesque horror films of all time, Wes Craven's "The Last House on the Left" remains a cult favourite and has gotten numerous critical raves, and for the life of me, I cannot figure out why.

A simple story of revenge, that claims to be based on a true story (the only real true story is that the film is based on an Ingmar Bergmann film called Virgin Spring" from 1960), the film with a title that has nothing to do with the plot at all starts with two girls heading to the big city for a concert. On the way, they hope to score some weed and in doing so, get captured by a family of jail escapees who proceed to torture, rape and kill them before happening upon one of the girl's parents, in a coincidental twist that verges on the idiotic. When the parents realize what has happened, you can guess what they doâ¦.

It is clear that this film was made to simply shock and appal, made by two guys with no experience and no money. Well, no money at the time, anywayâ¦Craven went on to direct âNightmare on Elm Streetâ? and âScreamâ? while producer Sean S. Cunningham is responsible for the entire âFriday the 13thâ? series. But forty years later, the film does not hold up at all. The violence is almost laughable because the acting is just so horrid, you see very little, the soundtrack, purposely contrasting with the images of violence, is ridiculous and the bits of comic relief are dreadful. What you end up with is a really badly made b-movie horror film that is nothing short of ridiculous on every level.

When watching the extras, Wes Craven discusses how the film was made with a bunch of inexperienced people, the one person having any cinematic knowledge being one of the actors...because he had done numerous porn films. Brilliant.

It is clear the filmmakers had no experienceâ¦nor did they have any idea how to make a film. Maybe this film was shocking was back in 1972, when it was made for $80000 and raked in 3.5 million, but by todayâ(TM)s standards, I would expect more from a student film.