Last House on the Left

Notorious video nasty, cult classic, milestone horror movie and directorial debut for the most successful genre director of the last two decades. Wes Craven's LAST HOUSE ON THE LEFT has enjoyed a significant critical U-turn over the last few years - from being reviled as misogynistic filth, to being revered as one of the ultimate celluloid anti-violence protests.

Truth is, the film could easily be read on either level.

The story is simple yet effective. Mari (Sandra Cassel) celebrates her seventeenth birthday by attending a rock concert with her best friend Phyllis (Lucy Grantham). Unfortunately, their night of fun coincides with the escape of two violent convicts - Krug Stillo and Fred 'Weasel' Podowski.

Looking to score some dope, Phyllis and Mari embark on a fateful (ultimately fatal) journey down a seedy street where they encounter the nervous junkie Junior Stillo (Mark Sheffler). He lures the girls into the flat housing Krug, Weasel and their "strong and animal-like" female partner, Sadie.

As Mari's parents prepare a warm birthday bash for her back home, their daughter is subjected to beatings, rape and torture as the fugitives take the two girls to the woods for an afternoon of perversity and murder. What makes events all the more tragic is the moment when Mari realises she is merely minutes away from her parents' home. But while escape is attempted, it proves fruitless and the girls are in for a decidedly rough ride ...

LAST HOUSE is not without it's weak spots. The humour in the script is lame - especially Mari's parents in the opening twenty minutes. But thankfully all traces of humour evaporate as soon as we reach the woods. The scenes with the two bungling cops are comical but annoying. And the less said about the fashion on show, the better!

The plot twist that occurs about halfway through LAST HOUSE is, of course, ludicrous - the notion that the killers would just happen upon the house of their victim's parents. But it's a plot device cribbed from the celebrated THE VIRGIN SPRING, and in using it Craven unwittingly created the blueprint for a sub-genre that still thrives today: the 'rape-revenge' flick.

But the pros outweigh the cons. The villains are frighteningly convincing - especially David A Hess as the soulless Krug. Sheffler handles the role of Junior supremely well, creating a character despicably weak yet able to attract the viewer's sympathy when required.

The hand-held camera-work creates an uncomfortable documentary feel to the film that works superbly. Without the use of overt gore, Craven is able to illicit an atmosphere of very real violence and terror.

Hess' music score is so inappropriate as to be ingenious. It works brilliantly in the scary rape scenes with its off-kilter tenderness juxtaposed against the screams on screen.

The major strength of this film though is its overall power. It's an inimitable combination of the grainy 16mm look, the untrained performances and go-for-broke scenes of cruelty that draw you in and make you really fear what may happen next.

Of course, in terms of gore, LAST HOUSE is tame by the standards of what has followed in its wake. But there's no denying that rawness on the screen, and the intensity that comes from it.

LAST HOUSE is a classic film that everyone should own - I think that's common knowledge! However, with two DVD releases already out there (one French, one Dutch) and a UK 2 disc version on it's way ... what does this R1 MGM release have going for it?

Well, it's uncut (the UK release won't be). And it wins over the French/Dutch releases purely on extras - plus its widescreen presentation is anamorphic, whereas the Dutch release wasn't.

Speaking of extras:

There's a wonderful thirty minute featurette ("IT'S ONLY A MOVIE") which features brand new interviews with many of the principal cast and crew members (Cassel isn't there though). Everyone seems well-natured about the film, even Craven and producer Sean S Cunningham who don't even seem to like it much! It's a wonderful insight into the film - keep watching during the end credits too, as Hess gives an affectionate greeting to Fred Lincoln (Weasel): a nice touch.

The original trailer is cool - it doesn't give much away, but is a nice addition anyway.

The film is available with an optional 'introduction' by Craven which is about forty seconds long and therefore hardly worthy of being merited as a 'special feature'. But it's here anyways ...!

"Outtakes & Dailies" and "Forbidden Footage" are two interesting featurettes that offer approximately twenty minutes of material and honestly would have been better included as part of the "IT'S ONLY A MOVIE" short. But they're welcome additions - and it's nice to finally see the fabled 'disembowelment' reels, albeit without sound.

There's also a commentary track from Craven and Cunningham that offers lots of invaluable mumblings on the low budget origins of the film. It's also peppered with affectionate joking from the pair, and a cute sense of embarrassment at times that is baffling when you consider that this film has survived with a healthy following for thirty years. Wonder if THE SERPENT AND THE RAINBOW will achieve that status?!

Picture quality is on a par with the French release, which was also anamorphic - no visible artifacting or snow. Yes, the image shows grain but it suits the documentary feel of the movie - and besides, we're talking about a film that is thirty years old, low-budget and was shot on 16mm then blown-up to 35mm! What do you expect?!?!

The blacks are black and colours are vibrant. The picture is reasonably sharp and bright: only the most anal viewers would possibly demand more from a film of such age and origin.

Sound is mono, and is excellent in that it never falters once. Subtitles are available on the main feature in English, French and Spanish - personally I think the utilisation of subtitles is a nice touch, one that the likes of Anchor Bay would benefit from using.

Available at a nice price (e.g.: 11.99 inc p+p from Future Entertainment), it's certainly not a bad proposition. My main gripe is that, as MGM have kindly provided us with a double-sided disc - one side includes the anamorphic w/s version, the other contains a full-frame version - the extras have been split across both sides. It's not a huge problem, granted (Warner did it with their standard-setting THE EXORCIST release) but it would have been nice to have everything in one place.

The forthcoming Anchor Bay UK release* will doubtless be the definitive version of LAST HOUSE (well, apart from the fact the BBFC - British Board Of Film-Illiterate Cunts - requested cuts) with it's abundance of extras. But perhaps this release may make for an interesting side-order: uncut, good-looking and with different documentaries, commentary tracks etc to the UK release.

In fact, if the ABUK release got 'pulled' (let's face it, the events in Soham of late cast an air of 'bad timing' for such a subject matter to be hitting the streets), then this must be considered the ultimate substitute ...

Also, it's interesting to note that the presentation of the film here has newly processed end-credits, plus a title sequence at one point in the movie (when the girls are crammed into the boot of Krug's car) informing us that it is the next morning. Hmmm ...

The cover is crappy and there is no inlay booklet or card inside the black keepcase. The Scenes menu offers sixteen chapters, which is reasonable for an eighty-four minute feature.

Either way you look at it, it's fantastic to see such a benchmark of bad-taste horror receiving the attention it's getting these days. MGM have done a mighty fine job here, and I for one - at a time when so many cool discs are being released - am pleased my budget extended to buying this gem!

*Anchor Bay UK has purchased the rights to the DVD release of LAST HOUSE from Blue Underground.

Review by Stuart Willis