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Last House On The Left-Slight Spoilers

Started by Mr_Vindictive, January 10, 2004, 09:14:50 AM

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Mr_Vindictive

While my wife and I were in Blockbuster a couple of nights ago, she mentioned wanting to rent Last House On The Left.  Her mother made her watch it as a child to teach her not to talk to strangers (sick...).  I had never seen it, so we picked it up on DVD.

I was kind of let down by Last House.  Sure it was pretty disturbing, but it could have been even more so if it had cut out two things:

1. The HORRIBLE music.  Is this a comedy or an explotation flick?  Ugh, it was painful to listen to the horrid music that Craven chose for this flick.  Major points knocked off for that.

2. The cops.  Why in the hell did Craven add in this horrible and unfunny subplot about the two bumbling cops.  The film switches from scenes of rape and murder to bumbling cops with their own horrible music.  Stupid!  Stupid!  Stupid!  Stupid!

Another thing that bothered me was the demise of the bad guys.  It just didn't seem violent enough for me.  I wanted to see the bastards suffer after what they had done.  Sure the penis scene had me cringing, but other than that the deaths seemed too easy for what the criminals had done.  I wanted to see that chainsaw go into the guy.  I wanted to see the wife REALLY go at the whore chick with the knife.  I wanted to see real revenge.  

Overall though, the film was worth a rent.  Not the best explotation, but it is a good watch for historical purposes and if you're a big fan of Wes Craven's.  I have to give the film 2.5/5.

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Next up for review is The Serpent And The Rainbow.  I'll have a review for that on Tuesday.

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"The greatest medicine in the world is human laughter. And the worst medicine is zombie laughter." -- Jack Handey

A bald man named Savalas visited me last night in a dream.  I think it was a Telly vision.

Daniel Johnson

   It's true that the bad guys should have had a lot more revenge taken out on them, but you have to keep in mind that they possibly DID. Although the mgm DVD of the film is the longeest running print availiable, which is the one you probably rented a lot of scenes have been 'lost' and can therefore never be put back into print seeing as that they are not missing due to such causes as bein 'banned' or censored'. I agree with you in some parts about the music, but then again it was the early 70's so...
   I felt the cop subplot WAS necessary as for me anyway it drove home the pint of official authority being of inept through out the 60's and into the early 70's and the thought that intelligent people such as Mari's parents could in so many words "Fight their own battles".
My overall rating: 4/5

jmc

Craven felt like the scenes of comic relief made the murder scenes more disturbing.  I'm not entirely sure, but in general I think it's good for films like this to give the audience a chance to catch their breath at certain points.  

A lot of the problem with this film has to do with how dated it is, something that really can't be helped [although it also shows that using contemporary music is a sure way to make your movie look dated in years to come, a lesson that the directors of most of the horror films today have yet to learn.]   I still think it's an important film and more shocking and disturbing than a lot of the films that came after it.

BTW, David Hess [Krug] did most of the music.  He also wrote "All Shook Up" for Elvis.

FearlessFreep

Craven felt like the scenes of comic relief made the murder scenes more disturbing

I agree, this was my take on the music as well.  The contrast between the silliness and gruesomeness  makes it more intense

Going places unmapped, to do things unplanned, to people unsuspecting

Chopper

HAHA! you didn't dig the soundtrack, that was David Hess (the actor playing the evil lead villain Krug) singing and composing all of it. personally i like the music, even though it is a little dated (I'll admit some of the songs do get a little annoying-especially that one where the 2 dumbass cops are sitting on the chicken truck: AHHH!). to address your view on the film's comic relief, Craven said on the commentary track that he did that to relieve the audience of the real dark material they were faced with, keep in mind this was the early 70's, people wanted to "feel good man!" and watch more movies about beach partys and junk like that.
& the best reason i can think of for not showing Krug get chainsawed is because they didn't have the budget for it! LoL

  "and the road leaves to knowhere..."

Chopper


42nd_Street_Freak

I have to agree.  The 'Comedy Cops' were awful.  And is an astonishing bit of self inflicted damage by Craven.  

And somehow the Parents revenge was just not nasty enough...
 
But otherwise this still has some powerful sequences.  The torture and murder of the two girls still has the power to shock and has one surprisingly 'deep' moment when the last girl walks slowly out into the pool to die.  In the end, their obviously sexual lust for violence satisfied ,the killers look almost tired with what has gone before.  And as Hess levels the gun at her he looks genuienly bored and even melancholy.  Excellent scene.