'Last House' offers no shelter from the savagery
Dennis Iliadis' remake of the outlaw horror film "Last House on the Left" panders to our bloodlust with gleeful abandon, manipulating us into cheering for acts of graphic retribution that would usually repulse and sicken us.
Forget about the violent vengeance in "Watchmen." Some scenes in "Last House" are so shocking, so over-the-top, that viewers gasped in unison during a screening Monday night. This is the roughest, most explicit R-rated movie I can remember.
Wes Craven's low-budget 1972 rape-and-kill horror movie "Last House on the Left" contained scenes of such heinous sadism that by the time local projectionists across the country snipped out all the offensive parts, an extant version of the original feature hardly existed.
Originally conceived as a hard-core porn film, Craven's movie was based on Ingmar Bergman's 1960 classic "Virgin Spring," the story of a Swedish girl raped and murdered by men who then unwittingly stay at the house of the girl's parents. They don't live to regret it.
A blatant 2005 "Last House" rip-off, appropriately titled "Chaos," upped the brutality and nihilism by having the assailants slice body parts off a girl before raping her as she lay dying.
Now, Iliadis' slightly less loathsome but highly visceral remake retells the Bergman story with higher-quality production values and a score that, frankly, don't improve at all on Craven's raw and grainy cautionary renegade tale.
Dr. John Collingwood (Tony Goldwyn), wife Emma (Monica Potter) and 17-year-old daughter Mari (Sara Paxton) arrive at their isolated summer home for a vacation. Mari takes the car into town to hook up with her fun-loving pal Paige (Martha MacIsaac).
They run into wimpy Justin (Spencer Treat Clark), a quiet kid with glazed eyes who promises them some excellent quality weed if they'll come back to his motel room.
Don't do it!
They do.
Soon, the trio is joined by Justin's redneck dad Krug (Garret Dillahunt), his creepy uncle Frank (Aaron Paul) and dad's creepier sleazebag lover Sadie (Riki Lindhome). Having just busted Frank out of a squad car by killing two cops (a scene added to this version), Krug can't let the girls go. So, he opts to have fun in the country by making a man out of his whiny boy Justin.
Paige meets a painful, bloody fate. Mari tries to swim away in a lake, but Krug's gun puts a bullet into her back, and she's left for dead.
During a violent thunderstorm, this Manson family knock-off takes shelter in a nearby home. It belongs to John and Emma, anxiously awaiting the return of their daughter Mari.
Once John and Emma realize the truth, they set about with Shakespearean-level savagery to avenge their daughter with knives, a pickax, a gun and a garbage disposal.
If you're one of those moviegoers who blindly claps, whistles and cheers at shocking carnage, "Last House on the Left" should give you a major workout.
But remember, "Last House" is a real horror film not because of what Krug does to teen girls, but because of what ordinary parents do to protect and avenge them.
And we approve.
<p class="factboxheadblack">"Last House on the Left"</p> <p class="News">Two stars</p> <p class="News"><b>Starring:</b> Tony Goldwyn, Monica Potter, Sara Paxton, Martha MacIsaac, Garret Dillahunt</p> <p class="News"><b>Directed by:</b> Dennis Iliadis</p> <p class="News">A Rogue Pictures release. Rated R for extreme violence, language, sexual situations, nudity, drug use. 100 minutes</p>