"The Last House on the Left" ZERO (out of ****) Sometimes you will watch a movie that is so bad you want to take the DVD out and smash it into tiny pieces or take out the VHS and burn the film. That is how I felt watching this movie but I couldn't do either of those things because I rented the movie.
"The Last House on the Left" was written and directed by Wes Craven. It marked his debut. Most of my readers may know Wes Craven through his "Nightmare on Elm Street" series. Or possibly his "Scream" films (there is supposedly a fourth on the way). But after watching this piece of garbage (I refuse to refer to this as a "movie", "film" or "picture") I cannot, for the life of me, understand how Craven was ever able to make another movie again. Why would someone want to invest in one of his projects after watching this?
The plot of this piece of garbage revolves around two young girls; Mari (Sandra Cassell) and Phyllis (Lucy Grantham). They go to a rock concert in a bad neighborhood. They approach a young man, Junior (Marc Sheffler) who they think might be able to help them score some grass (and I'm not talking about for planting). Junior tells them both to come up to his room where three other people are in his apartment; his father, Krug (David Hess), his girlfriend (?) Sadie (Jeramie Rain) and "Weasel" (Fred J. Lincoln). They have all just escaped from prison. They kidnap the girls, beat and rape them and finally kill them.
Meanwhile Mari's parents, a doctor (Richard Towers) and his wife (Cynthia Carr) have called the sheriff (Marshall Anker) and his deputy (Martin Kove) to help find their daughter and her friend.
As it turns out the gang of thugs are actually just across the street from where Mari lives. After the gang kills the girls and their car brakes down, they stop into the girl's parents' house seeking shelter. Not knowing who these people really are. Once the father does find out who they are he kills them one by one.
Some of you may think I've just revealed too much. Not really. I'll explain why. This story was actually based on another film, Ingmar Bergman's "The Virgin Spring", which won an Oscar for best foreign language film. If I had merely said the film is based on Bergman's movie, anyone who has seen it would have already known everything I just described without me saying another word. So I don't feel I have spoiled anything.
The Bergman film is not one of my favorites of his films. But, compared to this movie it is the single greatest film ever made in the history of cinema. Another movie came to mind as I watched "The Last House on the Left". Michael Haneke's "Funny Games" a movie about two young punks who torture a family for no reason at all other than the "fun" of it. That movie however was a least trying to make a social point. This piece of garbage isn't.
Now on paper this piece of garbage may sound like it could make a good horror movie. And I agree. I did rent it after all for a reason. But everything about "The Last House on the Left" is disappointing. Nothing in Craven's weak and pathetic script works.
My first problem with this piece of garbage is the script. No one in this movie speaks the way real people speak. It sounds phony. The sheriff character and his deputy say their lines with a fake southern accent. The script is also extremely dated. This piece of garbage was released in 1972 and the characters say things like "groovy man" and "yeah man". This becomes laughable. In the opening scene Mari is about to go out to the party while her father stops her and checks out her breast, telling her she better go put on her bra. Never have I heard a father and daughter have such a conversation. They are speaking so openly about sex. Mari is swearing in her of her parents and they all just joke about it. It didn't seem like something I could relate to. It wasn't part of my reality. My father never told my sisters to put on a bra. I don't think he ever checked.
The second problem is the acting. Thank God Sandra Cassell and Lucy Grantham never acted in another film ever again. They give very weak performances. Again there is no sense these people are real. I don't believe in them. The gang of thugs suffer from the same problems. No one is trying to seem realistic but rather are acting in a style which I have referred to as real people trying to act real in a way they feel other people perceive real. Sound confusing? Imagine what the performances are like.
This piece of garbage also seems violent for no reason. Characters are constantly being cut with knives and beaten and raped. It feels as if Craven merely did this not because it suited his story but because he wanted to push the envelop and shock us for the sake of shocking us. This is really a piece of exploitation.
Craven makes very lame attempts at dark humor. The soundtrack is mostly slow hippie songs about love. In one scene Krug tells the two girls to get undressed and make up with each other at gunpoint while Craven puts a tender song about love on. I can only guess this was Craven's way to insert humor but it just doesn't work. The other times, when the sheriff is on-screen, Craven uses silly music which tries to give the piece of garbage a comedic, slapstick feel.
The Sheriff scenes are so bad! Craven presents them as nitwits. Their car brakes down as they try to hitchhike only no one will stop for them. This leads them to argue with drivers. Another lame brain attempt at humor, these scenes simply don't belong in this piece of junk. It breaks the flow. Maybe that was Craven's idea. A release from tension created in previous scenes. But there is no tension created.
Since reviewing so many horror films this month I have spoken about what I think makes a horror film work. There has to be a sense of realism. The viewer has to think this could happen in real life. Could the events here happen? Probably. You always here stories about people being kidnapped. People getting killed in their homes. I have relatives who were murdered in their home. This story could happen. But the problem is it is not presented realistic. I watched this piece of garbage late at night, alone. I shut the lights off and was hoping to be scared. Ladies and gentlemen, I sat bored to death. I even considered shutting the thing off.
A lot of people may wonder why "zero" stars? I have saved my "zero" star rating for rare occasions. John Waters' "Pink Flamingos" for example. The worst thing I have ever seen before. And Tom Green in "Freddie Got Fingered". Those pieces of garbage I found morally objectionable. They were vile and disgusting. Not to mention poorly made. "The Last House on the Left" doesn't struck me as morally objectionable but it is so poorly made that I cannot give it the satisfaction of 1 star. It doesn't earn it.
I was a film major in college. We had to make short silent films in school. None of them were really any good. We were all learning and developing a style. Trying to figure out ways to use the camera. I would rather watch those student films over this piece of garbage any day. Those movies (and I'm even willing to refer to them as "movies") were more realistic than this.
I have nothing against Wes Craven. I really enjoyed "Scream". I thought "Red Eye" was a decent thriller. I wasn't too impressed with "Cursed" but I never thought Craven was a talentless director. After seeing this piece of garbage however it has damned him in my eyes. I've lost a lot of respect for him. He'll never recover. This is pure junk. If you want to rent a decent horror film on Halloween night please, please, stay away from this.
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