Review of The Last House on the Left (2009) by Juliankennedy23 — 16 Nov 2014

Last House on the Left: 5 out of 10: Close but no cigar. Honestly anyone who remembers 1972’s shocking version of the Virgin Spring had to know this remake would pull back the reigns. It would be like a remake of “I Spit on your Grave”... just not likely in these conservative and commercial times. Well at least they did not make it PG-13.

They screw up they remake early with two changes. The bad guys are bad guys from the start. There is no connection with the audience. No sense that they are travelling down a path as well; they do not connect with the audience as the hippies of the first film did. There is no sense that they are exploring there boundaries or challenging themselves. They start fully formed as black hats.

The second mistake is moving the story out of a regular middle class neighborhood and into a millionaires’ nature retreat. There is something shocking about violence among the shag carpeting and wood paneling of suburbia (The original movie was from 1972 after all) that is lost with the large Architectural Digest house perfectly clean and decorated. (Though with the filmiest wooden furniture this side of a thirties Western).

The rape is much less graphic than the original and the sense of sadism and intimacy of the first film is lost. On the plus side, Tony Goldwyn and Monica Potter give great performances as the parents and the revenge scenes are not completely without a sense of fun.

If this film was called something else, I might have gone easier on it. As a Last House on the Left film, it is a glossy shadow of its predecessor.