Last House on the Left [DVD] [2009] [Region 1] [US Import] [NTSC]

When I looked at the title, I thought it was going to be a excellent Saturday night entertainment of pure horror. Instead it's a unsettling and disturbing revenge movie. The story is a young girl goes out with her friend only to be taken by a group of strangers, they beat and abuse leaving them for dead. Then for the night, the group seek shelter on a house that is the only one around. But when the family realise that they were the ones that hurt their daughter, they plan a brutal and bloody revenge on them all. It's up there with Eden Lake (a film I can never see again as it seriously damaged me after seeing it) and The Strangers (ditto) for being a truely horrid ride. It has a slow start but once it gets going, you want it to have a sort of happy ending. I warn you if you want to see this, it's not for the faint hearted and people who don't like blood or disturbing movies. But if you can stomach it, check it out. It's lead with a little known cast but they play their parts well, it has also a great picture and sound on Blu-Ray.

The title The Last House On The Left has particular resonance for British horror fans. Until very recently Wes Craven's cult classic 1972 original remained unavailable in it's uncut form having been one of the many films to fall victim of the notorious video nasties debacle of the 1980s. Craven's Last House On The Left - 3 Disc Ultimate Edition (Uncut) [1972] [DVD] was a film that divided critical opinion with some critics praising it's unflinching analysis and depiction of violence and it's results (inspired by Craven's disgust at the sanitised news reports of real life violence in Vietnam), while others saw it as merely low budget exploitation trash.

Loosely inspired by Ingmar Bergman's 1960 arthouse classic The Virgin Spring [1960] [DVD] (itself based on a 13th century Swedish ballad named Töres dotter i Wänge) the film tells the story of two young girls who are abducted, raped and murdered by a gang who are on the run. When their car breaks down the gang unwittingly seek refuge at a house belonging to the parents of one of their victims. As the narrative progresses the parents, after discovering their daughter's fate, take their brutal revenge.

With the spate of horror remakes that have been hitting our screens in recent years it is not surprising that story of The Last House On The Left is on our screens once again, what is surprising is that in many ways it surpasses the original - although once again such confrontational material has sharply divided opinion.

Produced by Wes Craven and directed by Dennis Iliadis, the remake takes the key elements of the original and effectively reworks them to startling effect. Rather than follow the route of other recent horror remakes by using flashy music video style editing The Last House On The Left takes it's time to build up it's characters, also favouring long takes to build suspense rather than relying on jump cuts. The ever reliable John Murphy contributes an excellent score, and the cast all turn in performances of a quality that is completely unexpected in a horror remake.

The narrative has been changed in a number of ways that reduce the sheer nihilistic bleakness of the original, but the changes do not detract from the overall shocking effect - although a short postscript involving a microwave does threaten to destabilise the taught narrative that has preceeded it.

It should be emphasised that this film, like the original, is not meant to entertain but to raise questions about our individual capacity for violence and the thin veil of respectability and control that prevents the vast majority of us from acting on our worse impulses. The film's challenge (and tagline), "If bad people hurt someone you love, how far would you go to hurt them back?" is one that each viewer must confront when viewing this disturbing and thought provoking film.

This is a remake of the Wes Craven's low budget 1972 cult favorite of the same name. I saw the original, and despite its low budget values, replete with grainy film images and bad acting, it was one of the most horrifying and brutal films that I had ever seen. Of course, the reality is that the crimes that were perpetrated in that film were just that, and, consequently, it remains one of the most frightening and shocking films to date. It was truly chilling. When I saw that there had been a remake, I would curious to see how it would compare. I would have to say that in the shock and awe department, the original still holds sway. Still, the remake is an excellent film and, though brutal, somehow less frightening.

The storyline is every parent's worse nightmare. A teenager, Mari Collingwood, goes with her parents to their rural country house. She takes the family car to meet a friend in town. Unbeknownst to them, an escaped killer named Krug is on the loose with his rescuers. Mari and her friend hook up with a creepy but cute guy with whom they end up smoking weed with in his motel room. Then his father, his crazy girl-friend, and his uncle show up, and all hell breaks loose. They are none other than the escaped killer and his rescuers. Clearly, they are not going to let these two girls walk away. What happens next will chill the viewer.

This gritty and raw film has excellent production values, good cinematography, and the cast is a definite an improvement over that in the original. The controversial rape scene is brutal but probably mirrors the reality of such a crime, and the reality of it ain't pretty. Garret Dillahunt is definitely a standout as the ruthless escaped killer. Likewise Tony Goldwyn, Monica Potter, and Sarah Paxton are also excellent as the beleaguered Collingwood family. Overall, it is a remake that stands up well to the original, as well as on its own merits. Although the film is very similar to the original, there are some differences, though in the long run, these differences do not really make or break this film of a family fighting to survive under circumstances most of us would prefer not to think about. Word to the wise: this film is definitely not for the squeamish or faint of heart.