Reviewed by Stuart O'Connor
Stars Sandra Cassel, Lucy Grantham, David Hess, Fred Lincoln, Jeramie Rain,
Marc Sheffler, Richard Towers, Cynthia Carr, Marshall Anker | Written by Wes Craven
UK certification 18 | UK RRP £19.99 | DVD Region 2 | Runtime 82 minutes | Directed by Wes Craven
When it was released in 1972, The Last House on The Left broke new ground for the portrayal of sex and violence on the screen. Of course, by today's standards, it's about as tame as Bambi. Well, the new, 18-rated version of Bambi where he goes after the hunters who killed his mother. With a chainsaw.
It was incredibly controversial at the time, although it was an enormous hit at the box office — except, of course, in England and Australia, because it was banned in both those countries. And, as far as I know, it's still banned in Australia. Here in the UK though, this new release is being promoted as uncut and uncensored.
Anyway, on to the movie itself. Is it any good? Yes and no. It's a very low budget production (shot on a shoestring $90,000) and was Wes Craven's first film. (For those who have been dead for the past 30 years, Craven went on to make The Hills Have Eyes, the Nightmare on Elm Street films, and the Scream trilogy). Also involved was producer Sean S Cunningham, who created the Friday the 13th franchise. So for all those reasons, it's a landmark film.
The plot is quite openly a remake of Ingmar Bergman's 1960 film The Virgin Spring. In Craven's version, two teenage girls — Mari (Cassel) and Phyllis (Grantham) — who are going to a rock concert in New York stop off to buy some dope. They end up in the clutches of a gang of killers, led by the psychopathic escaped convict Krug (Hess). The girls are subjected to torture and rape, and eventually killed. When the killers end up at the home of Mari's parents, and the parents find out what's happened, nasty revenge ensues. Involving a chainsaw. So it's really a film in two halves — a "torture porn" first half, and a revenge drama in the second. And overall, it's a fairly clumsy affair and hasn't dated well at all. You can see that Craven was just a beginner; it's not terribly well shot, or edited. But it's still effective, with mainly decent performances from the cast of virtual unknowns (except for Fred Lincoln, who had been a porn star ... and went on to act in or direct a couple of hundred more porn films). It's not the best horror film ever made, but it's definitely worth seeing if you're a Craven fan, interested in film history or just simply want to see what all the fuss was about.
EXTRAS ***** Three discs makes for an awful lot of bonus material. Disc 1 has the film plus two commentary tracks: one with writer/director Craven and producer Cunningham; the other with stars Hess, Sheffler and Lincoln. There's also a new making-of documentary called Celluloid Crime of The Century. It's worth noting here at neither female star of the film — Cassel or Grantham — takes part in a commentary or the documentary. There's also a featurette on the music, the theatrical trailer, TV and radio ads, outtakes and dailies, and a featurette on the UK theatrical tour of an uncut version of the film back in 2003. Disc 2 has a rare, alternative cut of the film, called Krug & Company; some newly discovered footage that has not been seen publicly; and an interview with Carl Daft of Blue Underground, who fought the BBFC over the film's banning. And finally, Disc 3 has a feature-length documentary, called Going to Pieces: The Rise & Fall of The Slasher Film, whch also has a commentary track and deleted scenes. Plus there is a quiz, all about horror films. All in all, a superb package.