Uneven. Titillation with topless fighting and trope‐y shower scenes, contrasted
with an exceptionally uncomfortable rape scene that plays far too long and
lingers in the distress caused.

Her mother trying to [spoiler]distract Pinkman (sorry Jessie, that’s
your forever name now) with come‐ons and alcohol while knowing that he’s likely
one of the rapists and attempted murderers? I don’t know how she would be able
to do that with a straight face.[/spoiler]

[spoiler]Pinkman’s death scene was the only part of the film I couldn’t keep a serious
face and let out a laugh – from the cunning drainage of the sink to the
discovery of a waste disposal and then just hanging off the sink with a hammer
in the back of the head. It needed to be quicker to avoid the comedy.[/spoiler]

Build up in the first handful of minutes really set my expectations
high, the murder and rape (then attempted murder) of the two girls had me
questioning where this film was trying to go. And i’m not truly sure it knew
either at the conclusion, I would read from it ‘our humanity is lost for
revenge’. But that might be too generous.

The comeuppance comes late in the film, and the final act… [spoiler]it
involves a microwave[/spoiler] is just out of place and absurd.

Parents brutally murdered three people.
Krug tried to kill his own son.

[spoiler]At least the son got over his demons and… oh wait no, he might
have died? I’m not even sure after that.[/spoiler]

It’s a well made, acted and composed jumble, which explains my high rating
alongside my negative comments.

Flipping through channels, this caught my attention even though I knew I never wanted to watch this version or Wes Craven's original. The assault and revenge subject matter is about the least appealing thing I can imagine watching. Give me malevolent aliens from space, marauding monsters from middle Earth or supernatural beings bent on haunting innocents anytime. But movies that feature such person-on-person cruelty are nothing I am interested in seeing. Inexplicably though, I watched this 2009 remake from start to finish.

Who is the audience for this? The assault of the young woman is horrible. The revenge of the woman's parents on the assaulters is over-the-top. Ask yourself...why would they shove one of the bad guy's hands in a garbage disposal before they slam him in the top of the head with a claw hammer?!? Later, the father (who's a doctor) surgically paralyzes one of the other scumbags and then puts his head in a microwave until it explodes. I don't know why a person would take revenge so "creatively". It changes the mood of the movie from disgust against the assaulters to clouding the motivations of the parents beyond the revenge of their daughter.

I'm starting to question myself actually. Why I would spend anytime with this sort of movie at all? And worse, I believe I've seen movies with even more senseless violence. Not pleased with myself for sitting through this.

Lake Ends In The Road.



The Last House on the Left is directed by Dennis Iliadis and adapted to screenplay by Adam Alleca and Carl Ellsworth from the story by Wes Craven (co-producer here). A remake of Craven’s 1972 film of the same name (itself influenced by Ingmar Bergman’s The Virgin Spring), it stars Tony Goldwyn, Monica Potter, Garret Dillahunt, Sara Paxton, Spencer Treat Clark and Martha MacIsaac. Music is by John Murphy and cinematography by Sharone Meir.



During a family vacation, teenagers Mari (Paxton) and Paige (MacIsaac) are viciously set about by a gang led by recent prison escapee Krug (Dillahunt). When bad weather forces Krug’s car to career off the road, the gang, unbeknownst to them, seek refuge in the vacation home of Mari’s parents. When the parents realise what their new lodgers have done, they begin to enact bloody retribution.



It’s pointless going on about remakes of old horror films, they are here to stay and we continue to watch them in the hope that they will strike a chord with us. With The Last House on the Left, remaking it, to me at least, is understandable given the 72 film is not exactly a great classic itself. True enough to say it has that grainy grunginess that was so befitting the decade’s horror movies, marking it out as an unsettling experience without really living up to its “terrifying” reputation. In fact if you put both movies together they still wouldn’t have enough class in them to give Bergman’s movie a run for its money.



So the remake then, all glossy and big budgeted, with name actors in the principal roles, it is by definition routinely packaged for the modern day audience. However, that doesn’t take away from the fact that what unfolds on that screen is challenging us, it really does do its job. The pertinent question exists, are you capable of such violence having had violence inflicted on your loved ones previously? What would you do in the same situation that Mari’s parents find themselves in?



We have been privy to what was meted out to poor Mari and Paige, and the impact is most distressing. There is good cause to argue that Iliadis and his production team go too far in grabbing our attention in readiness for the “revenge” factor later on. Certainly I myself was uncomfortable watching it, as I was with the I Spit on Your Grave remake, but it’s about getting a prescribed response, however close to the knuckle it is.



It’s not a film anyone can feel comfortable about recommending, surely? But I know it put me through a gamut of emotions, even making me feel bad about myself the next day. That is quite often the power of cinema, and clearly the banner that Craven and Iliadis held aloft during the publicity tours for The Last House on the Left. Today I give the film an uneasy 7/10, it’s uncompromising and unapologetically violent, but also laced with flaws. On another day I may find myself rating it considerably lower…