On DVD-'The Last House On The Left'

'The Last House On The Left' (R) (09) **1/2

Writers: Adam Alleca, Carl Ellsworth based on 1972 film by Wes Craven
Director: Dennis Iliadis
Starring: Tony Goldwyn, Monica Potter, Garrett Dillahunt, Sara Paxton, Aaron Paul

I was curious how long it would take before the groundbreaking horror cult film "The Last House On The Left" would be remade after the remakes of "The Texas Chainsaw Massacre" and "The Hills Have Eyes". In 1972 this small low budget slasher film was something moviegoers hadn't seen before with it's graphic violence and depraved subject matter. This was a horror movie with a graphic beating and rape scene and then a plan of revenge that was quite unique and sick. The first time I saw the original was a few years back and what I found was a movie that looked like a mixture of a snuff film and a badly acted amateur student film with a cheesy 70's music score. I have been so desensitized by horror and violence in films that I found this laughable and not really scary. Then I thought about how audiences hadn't seen stuff like the things that happened here before which includes a horrendous rape scene and death and then some offbeat kills including dismemberment. I thought that it had to be shocking at the time for audiences so it was I guess actually effective though I didn't care for it.

It wasn't a fun time at the movies and I find the remake has the same effect. I also found this movie not to be scary like the first one but very disturbing and horrific.I do have to admit though it is effective in what it is trying to do. It is pretty much the same with a rape scene in the beginning though I must say the new creators have toned it down from the first film. A teenage girl is raped and survives and the killers who become stranded after a car crash walk to a house that happens to be the house of the parents of the girl they raped. Then like the first one the parents find out and plot their revenge. This time the parents react as opposed to the first when the father comes up with a fiendish plot. This is your classic revenge film and you do want to see the killers get what they deserved so it is effective. I don't know,the movie does it's job but like the first I didn't really care for this movie either. To think that this movie like the first one was based on Bergman's "The Virgin Spring". It does though create a debate on whether the father could use a microwave the way he does to kill someone.