Cheap The Last House on the Left (DVD) (Sandra Cassel, Lucy Grantham) (Wes Craven) Price

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Customer Reviews of The Last House on the Left

Future "Scream" and "Friday the 13th" directors collaborate
On the eve of her 17th birthday, Mari Collingwood (Sandra Cassel) and her more streetwise friend Phyllis Stone (Lucy Grantham) hit a seedy NYC neighborhood to score some grass and attend a concert. Things go awry when sadistic prison escapees Krug Stillo (David A. Hess) and Fred "Weasel" Padovsky (Fred Lincoln) along with Krug's junkie son Junior (Marc Sheffler) and their tough bisexual girlfriend Sadie (Jeramie Rain) kidnap the two, leaving Mari's parents baffled by her disappearance as they were planning her a surprise birthday party. While the police reassure them that "lots of kids stay out all night," the murderous bunch - and I'll leave out graphic details for those not yet initiated - rape, torture, humiliate, and finally murder the two helpless girls. But the thugs soon have their own run of bad luck as they turn up at Mari's parent's house seeking shelter, and as soon as the worried parents find out what happened to their daughter - and by whom - they hand out some discipline of their own.

Shot in Westport Connecticut in the fall of 1971 (a lot of it in producer Sean S. Cunningham's mother's house and yard) this grisly little item with the working title Night of Vengeance pulls no punches and never gives the terrified viewer a break. This is a true horror film that you won't laugh off as the end credits roll, and writer/director Wes Craven himself is still startled by it even though he achieved his goal to make a movie that would scare the hell out of people. Many different cuts of this movie have been circulated due to the fact that irate theater managers and projectionists to name a few excised anything they found objectionable, and as a result Craven and Cunningham were hard pressed to come across a version that was virgin territory. Craven claimed that at the time he wasn't aware that legalities could force his hand when it came to the final cut, so the 1972 theatrical release and subsequent VHS release lost some footage. For the DVD release thirty years later, the film has been assembled in its complete form for the first time ever on home video.

MGM certainly went all out to please the fans here. The DVD is at last presented uncut and in a new 1.78:1 anamorphic widescreen (fullscreen on the other side) transfer which looks surprising good for a movie shot on 16 mm. We get a fair to poor 1.0 mono soundtrack as the sound on this movie wasn't recorded all that well. For those who can't make out some of the dialogue, theres also English, French, and Spanish subtitles and English Closed Captions. There's an entertaining and often amusing audio commentary by Wes Craven and Sean S. Cunningham, who seem to genuinely enjoy reliving the experience and poking fun at themselves. A definite high-point of the supplements is the featurette It's Only A Movie: The Making of the Last House on the Left, which features new interviews with Wes Craven, Sean S. Cunningham, Steve Miner, along with cast members David A. Hess, Fred Lincoln, Marc Sheffler, Martin Kove and Lucy Grantham. Like the commentary there's lots of information here, and a few amusing moments like when Fred Lincoln razzes David A. Hess for daring to say "[pee]your pants" to a girl. There's also the option of starting the movie with an introduction by Wes Craven, where he nervously informs us we're about to see the uncut version of the film, and how removing small children and pets from the room would be in our best interest. The theatrical trailer is included, and a silent ten minute montage of outtakes and dailies which includes the never used disembowelment scene, save for a few seconds in the final cut. Last but not least there's a short featurette titled Forbidden Footage, where cast and crew discuss the filming of some of the more violent scenes. A great package for the fans of this cult classic, and do send the kids to bed and the in-laws home first. And remember: To avoid fainting, keep repeating It's only a movie, only a movie, only a movie...

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Difficult film to explain...
This is one of those films that are difficult to explain or defend. While the film actually is based on The Virgin Spring (as opposed to Roger Corman's liberal use of Egdar Allan Poe's legacy to try to give a hint of art to his Vincent Price films in the early '60s) and Wes Craven's stated intentions about making a comment on the state of American society at the time do seem to be sincere, its still a hard film to really recommend. Basically, two teenage girls from the middle class are kidnapped, raped, and brutally murdered by a pack of degenerates who are then just as brutally and sadistically murdered by the girl's family. What set the film apart is the extreme (and close-to-realistic) nature of the gore and violence involved. People literally have gotten sick while watching this film and for good reason. I saw an edited version and still found it hard to take. As well, Craven makes it clear that the criminals and the avenging parents are pretty much only distinguishable by their social class. The parents, by the end of the film, take the same sadistic pleasure in their revenge that their victims took in their original crime. Its a grim message and not an extremely pleasant one. It also might be a lot more truthful than a lot of people want to admit. Still, I can't really recommend this film for that message. To get to it, you have to sit through some really repugnant, sadistic stuff and its hard to say that Craven's artistic intent can really be used as justification. (I guess the main problem is that I got the feeling that the filmmakers were basically getting off on the same violence they claimed to be condemning.) This is the type of film that everyone will have to make up their own minds on. So, in the end, a film that painfully betrays its low budget but manages to carry a very disturbing power to it and claims to, at least, contain a message that is still relavent. Not for anyone with a weak stomach but if you're a fan of gore films, (I'm not but I won't condemn anyone who is -- sometimes excess and shock has an understandable appeal) Last House is kind of required viewing. It doesn't really work as a horror film (I was never really scared as much as disturbed) but it does have a primitive, very raw power. Whether to see it is your own decision. I don't regret having watched it but at the same time, its not something I ever want to sit through again.

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How could Wes Craven do this?!!!!
This movie is nothing like people say it is. It is the worst movie I have ever seen. The only part good about it was the breasts( I say breast I was afraid I wouldn't get posted) and nothing else. I didn't even finish watching it.