Review of The Last House on the Left (1972) by ?Eljko M — 24 Jan 2009

There should be no question that The Last House on the Left is a bad film. It's poorly shot on low quality equipment and a cheap budget, with (mostly) poor acting, a bad script, horrible directing and editing choices, and a horrendously bad soundtrack. What makes the film notorious is its violent content, vicious "rawness," and its ensuing lengthy history of battling against censorship. Yet even then, the film shoots itself in the foot. Many of the most violent moments are broken up by cuts to benign scenes occurring at the same time. While I can understand a directorial intent to juxtapose the horrific with the lighthearted elements, the result ends up taking me out of the narrative, rather than coming off as profound. This is especially true when a very violent scene is repeatedly cut into by what is in my opinion the absolute worst comic relief subplot I've ever seen (the two bumbling idiot cops).

In a way, I have to respect TLHotL because of (never thought I'd say this) Craven's intent. I think that the point here is to effectively de-stylize violence, making it imperfect, dirty, raw, and ugly. This is, in a sense, making it realistic. The dodgy camera work and poor quality picture give the film a snuff/exploitation kind of feel, but at no point is the exploitation, gore, violence, or sex actually entertaining. Multiple full body nude scenes, and even a lesbian encounter fail to make anyone appealing or sexy in any way. The gore is actually quite toned down, proving effective yet not over-the-top entertaining like slashers often are. It's not violence for the scare, or for the exaggerated laugh, or for the sexiness, or even for the thrill. It's simply violence for its own sake. This kind of de-glorification I can very much appreciate, even if it's a small fundamental point and the film spends all its time making it. There's one moment in particular that's absolutely golden: the silence and the reaction shots after the first real killing. It's nearly sublime and I add on a full star for those two minutes alone.

This film is deemed a "classic" because it influenced other horror films after it to be more realistic and raw in delivery, yet its influence has proven to have an ironic twist. While the point here may have been to de-stylize gore, sex, and violence, its reach into horror/slasher cinema is directly traceable to current mainstream mutilation/exploitation films, or what I like to call popular pain porn (see Hostel, the Saw series, The Ruins, Touristas, et. al.). These films are agony pieces, made for a sadistic audience eagerly awaiting entertainment in the form of watching people suffer. It's ironic that Craven's first feature would be concerned with an un-entertaining yet realistic display of violence, depravity, and brutality, while the rest of his career and the films that were influenced by it, sought to make all three as appealing as possible.

A bad film in every technical facet, yet a classic with an interesting point to make.