The Last House on the Left (The Original)

The Last House on the Left (1972)

Runtime: 84 minutes

Directed by: Wes Craven

Starring: Sandra Peabody, Lucy Grantham, David Hess, Fred J. Lincoln, Jeramie Rain

From: Several small companies, including one lead by Sean S. Cunningham

This is another one of those films I may never see again.

The Last House on the Left is not a first time watch for me; I had seen it before, albeit many years ago. On a whim yesterday, I figured it was time for me to talk about a motion picture that still has plenty of notoriety today and I can't even say this launched the career of Wes Craven as the controversy was so strong, he had to direct an adult movie (where his nom de plume was ABE SNAKE) before coming up with The Hills Have Eyes and only then did he regularly work in the film industry.

Amazingly this was inspired by a Bergman movie (1960's The Virgin Spring) but it is exploitation all the way. Two girls (Phyllis and Mari) go to New York City to see a concert; while looking for “grass”, they come across some despicable felons that just broke out of prison and their equally loathsome pals... one of whom is a lady called Sadie. Many horrible things happen to Mari and Phyllis; while not as extreme as you'd see in later films, it is still abhorrent acts that are committed against them and of course, both of them die. In a giant contrivance, this happens right by Mari's house; her dad is a doctor so the family is well-off. Yet the parents commit heinous acts of their own as revenge once they realize what occurred.

Aside from the shock moments there are other questionable moments with this film. There's a subplot with a pair of bumbling cops (one of them played by Martin Kove!) and they are almost TOO stupid to be believable. I mean, a key plot point is that they run out of gas. Then there is how the soundtrack which has either hippy folk ditties or tunes featuring the banjo; this includes moments where bad things are happening. Heck, there's even a tune which talks about the villains. Whether or not this juxtaposition was needed or “right” is for certain a topic of discussion. More cut and dried is how there are massive continuity errors and gaps in logic where things just don't make a lot of sense. And of course Sadie is implied to be bisexual so Phyllis utters a slur at her at one point which I won't repeat here, but yeah...


Even with the valid complaints, I can still say this is OK. How rough this is around the edges (Craven definitely would do a better job directing after this) creates a raw visceral feeling and those appalling moments are still brutally effective in 2019. But there are other Craven films that are more worthy of me to watch or rewatch in the future and as those don't have women being abused and tortured so even though David Hess does a fine job as the lead villain and this is also how the careers of Sean S. Cunningham and Steve Miner began, I probably will not watch this ever again.