October 19, 2002

I am informed that Last House on the Left caused a major stir upon it's initial release in 1972. I understood that the movie was threatened with major boycotts and that director Wes Craven was made to cut the film four times to get it from an "X" down to an "R" rating. I'm told "It is sick, it is vile, it is the lowest, most disgusting images of human depravity that one can imagine in a fiction films. If you really want to see the worst, most insane cruelty that the human animal can bring upon his own kind then proceed at will."

So naturally . . . I had to see it.

Given the fact that nothing can be more horrifying than what happens in real life, I braced myself for Last House on the Left, expecting a bone-chilling glimpse into the mind of a killer. What I got was a bucket of boredom multiplied by fifty.

This is the most dead-beat movie that I have ever seen, a slow-moving slog from a vicious crime to an ultimate revenge and it all moves at a snail's pace.

The movie begins with Mari and Phyllis, two hippie chicks on their way to a rock concert who first decide to get a lift from Mary Jane, if you take my meaning. Heading off into the woods, they run headlong into a trio of wandering travelers.

We already know that the trio, Krug, Weasel and Sadie are escaped psychopaths and that they aren't going to waste any time turning Mari and Phyllis into the latest statistic. In a scene that can best be described as "criminally giddy" the two girls are subjected to humiliation, torture, sexual assault, assault and battery, murder, and ultimately dismemberment. Nice, huh?

Now, this might seem a lot worse then it actually plays out. Most of the scene is quick cut, close-ups, bloody clothes, screams and lots and lots of suggestions of what might actually be happening. Its a clever con-game. We know but we don't see.

But the movie's biggest surprise is yet to come. The trio wash themselves in a nearby pool and walk off through the woods and stop off at - you guessed it - The Last House on the Left. A kindly old woman answers the door and the three inform the woman that their car broke down and that they need some help. The woman wastes no time letting three total strangers into her home and making them comfortable (wouldn't you?).

It is left up to the viewer to decide who is the bigger dimwit: The woman who just invited three strangers to stay the night or the strangers who just gave the woman a suitcase full of bloodsoaked clothes. This unbelievably stupid move provides the movie's twist: The woman recognizes a necklace and we very sloooooooowly begin to understand that this is actually Mari's mother (what a co-inky-dink!)

Discovering that the three are responsible, Mari's mom and dad decide to make short work of their daughter's killers. Now, it is odd that the movie was edited down to remove all graphic violence from the earlier scenes but nothing seems to have been touched when the father breaks out the chainsaw. Nor is any single shot spared when the mother seduces one of the killers into the pond and bites off his *ouch!*

Now all of this sounds like the makings of a pretty shattering film, but all suspense and tension are sucked out because every action, every motion, every scene takes for-EVER!!! The characters in this movie move so slow that if we fast forward, they still move too slow. It is slow-moving, pretenious arthouse horror and, by God, they're going to keep it that way.