"The Last House on the Left", a Wes Craven DVD movie bearing the MGM DVD label as an Orion Pictures Release, a 1972 production. ISBN 0-7928-5319-9, DVD -- 1 Hour & 24 minutes in color with sound track & Special Features. Unrated.

Falling into a Cult Class of crude horror movies with retribution as a sadistic theme, "The Last House on the Left" is one such sick chiller-thriller that's a raw, gritty, primitive, nightmarish production that ranks high in the top of "snuff" cult films that would put Boris Karloff to shame, but reminiscent of the Manson carnages. Excess footage is devoted to progressive death & dying.

Premise here is one wherein Mari, a 17-year-old just coming of age, and friend Phyllis plan to attend the rock concert "Bloodlust" but are diverted. Upon an innocent and misplaced inquiry about getting weed, they are held captive by a quartet of psychopaths who get their joys out of embarrassment, intimidations, and then rape, torture and transportation of the girls to a forested area when they are again raped, tortured and brutally killed in gory and bloodily sceneries that extol bondage, limb severances and evisceration. One girl is left dead in the woods whilst the other is raped and executed by gunshots to the head while fleeing in a swampy pond. The psychos leave the area and find temporary shelter, unknowingly at first, with Mari's parent's who uncover the plot and retaliate in kind, chain saw and all.

Much time is given to futile and sickening chasings in the forest, akin to "I Spit on Your Grave" footage. The weird, discordant and out of theme background music and the comedic Keystone-like cops dooms the film from ever achieving greatness for horror filming.

All along this film was crying out for an enlightened director - and nobody came. It is so bad that it nearly comes full circle, but in an unenlightened way. I guess someone was destined to make this wacko sicko film -- Wes Craven took the carrot.

The Bottom Line:

While this early Wes Craven film is far from perfect, its interesting structure and intense horror more than overcome its defects (like the bumbling cop subplot that just plain doesn't work).

I watched this movie when I was a young girl. I was the type of teenager whom would talk or ride with strangers. After watching this movie, my life changed. Years later after I became a parent, I often spoke about this movie to my own children. I wanted them to understand the importance of socializing with strangers. This movie enforced to them, the seriousness of dealing with strangers. Its scary but in a way that the point is made. Every parent should encourage their teenager, especially daughters, to watch this movie.

*possible spoilers* I orginally saw this movie, when my parents took us to the drive in, back in the early 70's. I may have been 6 or 7 years old. I was able to rent the movie tonight and rewatch it for the 1st time in 30 something years. So as you can imagine it is extremly dated, and it shows it's age. It is NOT a feel good movie, so if you are expecting 90 mins of fun and excitement, forget it. There are no special effects and the budget is obviously very small. However I felt that the directing was excellent and this is a very powerful movie and not for the squemish. The bumbling cops in the movie provided some very needed comic releif to offset the extremly disturbing subject matter. Let's face it the kidnapping, rape, mutilation and murder of two young teenage girls is bad enough. It is hard to watch at times, expecially due to the fact that the murders take place in such close proximtity to the girls home, where the gang of rapists and murderes end up after they commit their horrific crimes. Again this movie is not entertaining in the least, but, I gave it four stars because it does succeed in it's intended purpose. It's shocking and horrific and a parents worst nightmare come true. You may find yourself cheering on the parents of Mary when they discover the truth and plot their revenge. Maybe that was the purpose of the film to feel that bit of satisfaction when the villians get what is comeing to them. Hmmm. something to think about if you would like to see it.

...Because it's hard to believe that the same man who brought us Nightmare on Elm Street would produce such absolute trash. Reminiscent in subject and feel to "I Spit On Your Grave", this movie, unfortunately, has neither the depth nor the horror of this aforementioned classic. I didn't find the violence to be all that graphic. It's not directly shown, but rather very strongly implied. The criminals are impossible to take seriously. The only thing criminal about them is their sheer stupidity. The acting is sickeningly bad. I don't know what the actresses' blank expressions are meant to convey (shock, perhaps?), but they fail miserably. What really put me off about this movie wasn't the bad acting or the lame script. It was how its overall mood jumped, in a rather bizarre and completely incomprehensible way, from twisted sadism to lighthearted humor. For example, the two cops looking for the crooks are used as comic relief throughout the entire film. My only question is, WHY? Was Wes Craven not sure whether to make a dark comedy or a horror/thriller? Moot point, I'd say, because it works as neither.