Classic Cinema
Last House on the Left
by Saranna DeWylde
Last House on the Left, an early masterpiece from one of the best in modern horror. Wes Craven paints us a picture of little Mari Collingwood, daughter of a local doctor and all around average American teenager. She begins a journey to celebrate her seventeenth birthday with her friend Phyllis, a seemingly streetwise girl from the wrong side of the tracks. In the city, they stop to buy marijuana, and here is where we run into the classic horror formula. Sex and/or drugs equals death. A simple equation, but the girls’ experience is so much more horrible than your average slice and dice. They are tortured, humiliated and raped. But the twist, what makes the film a classic, is what happens next. What would you do, if you’d taken strangers into your home, only to find out they’d murdered your only child? What would any parents do, to see justice for their child?
This film was given an "X" rating and regardless of cuts, did not receive an "R" rating until a friend of Craven’s on the MPAA was persuaded to do so. It was banned in the U. K. for thirty years, and when Atlas International released it in Germany, they attempted to market it as an actual "snuff" film.
This film is dark and violent, so much more disturbing in its realism-even by today’s standards and desensitization, it will make you stop and think. There are no supernatural forces at work here, just the dark heart of man. Whether the urge to murder is brought on by antisocial and sociopathic tendencies, or a righteous anger, it explores the darkness in all of us.
© 2005 Saranna DeWylde
All Rights Reserved.