Review of The Last House on the Left (2009) by Tyler R — 23 Nov 2010

Wes Craven brings his horror movies to life with twisting and enticing plots that keep the audience engaged throughout the entire movie. In 1972 he directed his first film, The Last House on the Left. This spring the movie was remade into what is arguably the best remake of all time.

The movie tells the story of two girls trying to score some marijuana when they are kidnapped by a gang of psychopathic convicts. Dragged into the woods, they are raped, stabbed, tortured, and gunned down. The killers, two men and a woman, then find refuge in a nearby house where they are welcomed in to stay for the night. The couple living there turns out to be one of the dead girl's parents. In the original film, they found out the visitors staying in their house were their daughter's killers because of a necklace one of the men was wearing. However, in the remake the tortured daughter survives the gunshot wound and crawls home where her parents find her on the porch. Realizing that they have housed the men that raped, tormented, and shot their daughter, they seek revenge. This was an interesting twist and gave the remake a new flare, keeping those that had viewed the original in suspense.

A high point in the film occurs when one of the men comes into the kitchen for a midnight snack. Emma, the woman of the house, seeks justice by attacking the murderous monster. This scene satisfies the audience's need for justice with its bloody slaughter of the man by first cramming his hand down the garbage disposal in the kitchen sink and then jamming the back end of a hammer into his skull. Before he is killed, he pulls his blood-spattered, deformed, and shredded hand out of the garbage disposal, and the audience gets a vivid view of the gory limb. The couple proceeds into the guest house where the other two killers are asleep. A cat and mouse chase keeps the audience guessing about what will happen next. In the end, the couple fulfills their need for vengeance, slaying each convict one by one in bloody battles that end with dramatic deaths.

The remake was incredible because the actors portrayed characters that could be real people, their behavior was plausible, the tension was intense, and the film was based on the strong notion that this awful act of evil could happen to you. This movie is not for the faint of heart. The rape scene in the woods is quite long and uncomfortable and brings to life the reality of a cruel world in which people commit acts of unfiltered evil. Its purpose is to bring about a strong sense of hatred for the gang committing the disgusting crime and a longing pity for the vulnerable teenager who lays victim to the horrifying violation of her innocence. The original movie had a strong focus around the sickening, unpleasant torment the girls went through in the woods. The remake minimized the torture scenes of the young women and focused more on the revenge the parents sought on the killers.

After the girl survives and crawls home, beaten and battered, there is a scene when her parents find her and put her on a table in the living room to attempt to save her. This scene is tear jerking and filled with compassion. As an audience member, I was so drawn in by the incredible acting and the emotions flowing through the characters' words and expressions, that I myself became sucked into the emotion of the moment and felt as though I was about to cry along with the parents. This scene was pivotal to the holistic feel of the movie: the realistic notion that this very sick and twisted story line could potentially happen to anyone. Dan Grant, a critic on The Internet Movie Database states, "It left me exhausted, depressed, and it drained me to the point that I thought I would break down and cry. It imbues a realism to it that just makes you feel like you are watching someone's snuff film. It is that macabre, and it feels that real. There is nothing else like it.".

The end of the movie gratifies the audiences' need for blood and revenge when the civilized family is forced to go feral. The vivid, brutal revenge fills the audience with shameful satisfaction. It brings about our deepest, darkest feelings about what we may succumb to if sickening psychopaths ever laid harm to our family. The only disappointing feature was the feeble tools of retribution the husband used in the remake, such as a fire-poker. In the original movie, he takes a chainsaw to the convicts and severs through to their insides. I kept waiting for the chainsaw to appear in the remake, but it never made it to screen. Although it is considered a cliché to kill with a chainsaw in modern movies, I felt it would have been representative of the original film, and I was a little let down when it wasn't used. Instead, he paralyzes the convict and sticks his head in a microwave with the door swung open, where it proceeds to smoke, sizzle, and then explode. This seemed a little out of place and over the top. It took away from the idea that the parents were driven to impulsive madness and became fanatical, reckless killers. To me, it seemed too premeditated and out of character for the husband.

The Last House on the Left has all the elements of a satisfying horror flick and more. It enrages, shocks, and jolts the audience's reflexes through graphic rape and torture. The brutality and violence was staggering, and the film spoke volumes of the corruption of the human soul. If you are a horror fanatic and you have not seen this Wes Craven masterpiece, you need to get out to the theater and watch it. You will not regret your decision to see this outstanding remake of The Last House on the Left.