This was pretty damn good. It starts off with this old grandpa guy babbling on and you think you're in trouble, like this is gonna be a long 89 minutes. But it's not! It gets right to the good stuff, you're sucked in then boom it's over.

At the cinema.
Some moments in this felt inexplicably legendary, the filming of the two lunatics simply running through the desert towards the end for example - idk why but that was so memorable - and many cuts throughout had this effect too.
I think Wes Craven was really finding his stride here, and maybe even found it.
I've noticed a common trend with his movies; normies will watch them and think they are "unintentionally funny" - this even extends to his high-budget career with films like Scream, a film I would entirely consider a comedy.
Some of my audience came out this screening saying the same for this movie and to me it's very obvious Wes is deliberately being comedic and/or goofy but I think the psychology behind many people thinking it's "unintentional" is super interesting. Like it's rooted in them feeling awkward at laughing because of it's dark subject matter or something. I think Wes just loves pitch-black comedy (which we can see from the very beginning with his brutal rape/torture-revenge debut Last House on the Left). In fact, he was obsessed with it. Subversion and perversion.

This was an iconic classic.

The setting up of the characters was alright, but afterwards, it was just incessant screaming, shouting, over-the-top acting, and not much else.

": Do you always try to stop trespassers by hanging yourself?" lol

Great idea and setting but didn't do much for me. The characters are annoying. The Texas Chainsaw Massacre is a better and more effective contemporary film.

Highly effective horror. Keeps you interested the whole way. If you are a horror fan and haven't seen this you really should. The remake isn't bad either but the original is the one.

Its to old to enjoy i start with the new one :)

This is so tame for what it is. I expected so much more gore but every scene enacting that makes a censor cut or is done tamely and then zeroes in on the more gruesome aftermath later. That said, this movie gets straight to the point pretty quickly and isn't a tiring watch at all though.

(Also wtf at her not being bothered at all seeing a damn tarantula roaming about in the trailer???)

I've seen bits of the remake before and was much more scared so I'm excited to watch it next.

The first half of the film was kind of boring, but from the half of it and forward, it was very exciting to watch

Wasn't sure about it at first. I don't think it finds the right balance between the legitimately thrilling and the ridiculous in the first half. Reminds me of films like _Mother's Day_ or _House of 1000 Corpses_, it has its niche and its audience, but that's always going to be a turn off for me. But once things get really emotional, you start to feel the tension and sense of hopelessness that I wish to get earlier. For all the depravity and inhumanity on display, it never quite reaches the same depth of human savageness as _The Last House on the Left_. As unremarkable as it is, it's an entertaining film. But I'd still recommend _The Last House on the Left_ instead, it is better than this in every way.

Wes Craven: Once again putting the 'bad' in 'bad director'.

The story is good, the actors are decent (Dee Wallace before Cujo!) but the directing takes everything that works and breaks it.

The proof is how much better the 2006, Alexandre Aja remake is than this pile of bad editing.