The Last House on the Left (1972)
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The Last House on the Left Movie Review
The Last House on the Left is a 1972 exploitation horror film directed by West Craven in his feature film debut. It’s a very gruesome, but interesting experiment.
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“We don’t wanna off someone first night out.
I mean, it’d be a shame to get this floor all messed up with blood“
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The movie is about a teenager who gets brutally raped and murdered by a fugitive family. The criminals then seek refuge in the house of her parents where the two begin their revenge. This is a very polarizing movie. It was important in kickstarting the career of Wes Craven and he instantly established himself as a prominent horror auteur. But the movie was also overly graphic in nature and it still remains too shocking even today.
The film is so gripping from start to finish and so interestingly put together that I would have really loved it had it not been for the excessive violence. This is where the movie went from disturbing to downright off-putting. Typical for the seventies decade, they showed everything. Yes, the blood looked somewhat fake, but still the effect was too disturbing as every single act of violence was depicted in its entirety, leading to a very disgusting viewing experience.
The movie walks a fine line between being realistic and gratuitous throughout its runtime, but throughout it remained incredibly disturbing for better and for worse. The violence in horror movies today is more excessive, but there is a clear difference in how the violence was executed here. It felt very much real due to a palpable sense of terror that permeates each and every scene of brutality. The result is a very difficult watch, but how the creators tackled violence and how easily humans succumb to it was definitely important.
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There is a lot of talk nowadays about the silly score of the movie being misplaced in this brutal horror feature and I definitely agree with that assessment. A creepier, more intense score would have been more suitable than this cheery, light soundtrack. Maybe that was the point that the director tried to make by contrasting the two, but still it wasn’t a great choice.
Another aspect that holds the movie back is the acting. Though I can definitely see the argument that the performances here are quite natural, I find these actors very mediocre myself. The fugitives fare better as two of them in particular are immensely disturbing in their wide-eyed killer eyes. However, the acting from the girls and even the parents was very mediocre, cheesy and just not good.
The Last House on the Left is also very much an early seventies picture due to the lingo being used that is very dated now as well as the emphasis on sex, drugs and hippies. The first half of the movie was too gruesome for me, though definitely attention-gripping, but the second half where the parents murdered the fugitives in these crazy, outlandish ways was wildly satisfying.
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As for the technical aspects, they are quite poor. This movie was clearly a directorial debut. Wes Craven did show a lot of promise in the directing and editing department as he made some great choices there, but the cinematography is absolutely awful with this very cheap, grainy look to all the shots in the film while the score is, as previously mentioned, quite bad. The blood effects are also not believable at all. But this was his first movie and he did establish himself as an interesting filmmaker right from the start.
