The Last House on the Left

Dir: Wes Craven

1972

*/*****

The Last House on the Left was a pioneer for independent film and pushed the boundaries of cinema and censorship, for that it should be congratulated and remembered. Wes Craven wanted to make a point about how violence was depicted on screen and in this respect The Last House on the Left is one of the most important films in modern history. Craven wrote the film in 1971. The original script was intended to be a graphic hardcore film, with all actors and crew being committed to filming it as such. However, after shooting began, the decision was made to edit the script into a much softer film. This script, written under the title Night of Vengeance, has never been released; only a brief glimpse is visible in the featurette Celluloid Crime of the Century (a 2003 documentary on the making of the film). The crux of the plot is based on the Swedish ballad "Töres döttrar i Wänge,” which itself was the basis of Ingmar Bergman's The Virgin Spring, of which Craven was an admirer. Craven envisioned a film in which the violence would be shown in detail onscreen as he felt that many popular films of the era, such as Westerns, glamorized violence and the "vigilante hero," and gave the public a misleading representation of death in the wake of Vietnam War. This was the young director’s wake up call to society, a slap in the face of the older generation. I can see where he was coming from and really, someone had to do it but from a viewing perspective it is a sick and horrible little film with very few redeeming features. Thestory begins as Mari Collingwood plans to attend a concert with her friend, Phyllis Stone, for her seventeenth birthday. Her parents, Estelle and John, express their concern about the band and her friendship with Phyllis, but let her go and give her a peace symbol necklace as a present before she leaves. Phyllis and Mari head into the city for the concert. On the way, they hear a news report on the car radio of a recent prison escape involving criminals Krug Stillo (David A. Hess – in a role he would play several times in his career – Craven later used the name "Krug" in A Nightmare on Elm Street for the film's villain, "Freddy KRUEGer." In both films the name is used for teenage murderers), a sadistic rapist and serial killer; his heroin-addicted son, Junior; Sadie, a promiscuous psychopath and sadist; and Fred "Weasel" Podowski, a child molester, peeping Tom, and murderer. Before the concert, Mari and Phyllis encounter Junior when trying to buy marijuana. He leads them to an apartment where they are trapped by the criminals. Phyllis tries to escape and tries to reason with them, but she fails and is gang-raped by Krug, Weasel and Sadie. Meanwhile, Mari's unsuspecting parents prepare a surprise party for her. The next morning, Mari and Phyllis are bound, gagged and put in the trunk of their car and transported to the woods by the criminals. Mari recognizes that the road is near her. Mari and Phyllis are forced to perform sexual acts on each other and Sadie attempts to perform oral sex on a weeping Mari. Phyllis distracts the kidnappers to give Mari an opportunity to escape but is chased by Sadie and Weasel, while Junior stays behind to guard Mari. Mari tries gaining Junior's trust by giving him her necklace and instead names him "Willow". Phyllis stumbles across a cemetery in the woods where she is cornered by Krug with a machete and stabbed in the back by Weasel. After they take turns kicking her, she crawls to a nearby tree and is stabbed by Weasel and Sadie multiple times. As she dies, Sadie digs her hand into the center of her belly where her belly button is and pulls out her intestines. Mari convinces Junior to let her go, but her escape is halted by Krug. Sadie and Weasel present Phyllis's severed hand as Mari screams in horror. Krug carves his name into her chest, then rapes her. She vomits, quietly says a prayer and walks into a nearby lake to clean herself, but Krug fatally shoots her, leaving her body floating in the lake. Krug, Sadie and Weasel clean up and change out of their bloody clothes. In their new attire, the gang goes to the Collingwoods' home, masquerading as travelling salesmen. Mari's parents let them stay overnight, but Junior exposes their identity and orders them to leave. The gang finds photos of Mari and discovers that it is Mari's home. Later that night Junior, in the midst of a heroin withdrawal, is heaving in the bathroom; Estelle enters to check on him. She gasps as she sees that he is wearing Mari's peace symbol necklace. She eavesdrops while the gang is spending the night in Mari's bedroom and finds blood-soaked clothing in their luggage. She overhears about the death of her daughter and disposal of the corpse in nearby lake. She and her husband rush into the woods where they find Mari's body on the bank of the lake. They carry Mari's body back to the house and exact revenge against the crooks. Estelle seduces Weasel and performs fellatio on him that turns deadly when she bites off his penis and leaves him to bleed to death. Mari's father John takes his shotgun into the room where two of the criminals are asleep and shoots at them. Krug escapes into the living room and overpowers John, before being confronted by Junior, brandishing a revolver and threatening to kill him. Krug manipulates Junior into committing suicide by shooting himself. Using this distraction to his advantage, John runs into the basement to fetch a chainsaw. Krug attempts to shoot him with the shotgun but finds it is empty. Krug attempts to flee but is incapacitated by an electrocution booby-trap set earlier by John. Sadie rushes outside where she is tackled by Estelle, but she escapes and falls into the backyard swimming pool where Estelle slits her throat with a knife. The sheriff arrives just as John kills Krug with the chainsaw. The deputy then brings Estelle into the living room before removing the chainsaw from John's hands. Sean S. Cunningham made his directorial debut with the film The Art of Marriage. His film grossed $100,000 and attracted the company Hallmark Releasing. Cunningham made the film Together as a "better version" of film. Wes Craven, who had no money at the time, was put on the job of synchronizing dailies for Cunningham's re-shoot. He soon began editing the film with Cunningham and they became good friends. Hallmark Releasing bought the film for $10,000 and it was considered a "hit." Hallmark Releasing wanted them to do another film with a bigger budget and gave them $90,000 to shoot a horror film. Cunningham served as producer and Craven served as writer and director on the project. The majority of the cast of The Last House on the Left were inexperienced or first-time actors. Cunningham and Craven held casting calls for the film at Cunningham's office in late 1971. Craven sought a documentary style appearance for the film, marked by close-up shots and single-cut takes to give the film terrifying realism. Cunningham later described the film shoot as being guerrilla-style with the crew spontaneously filming at locations and being forced to leave due to lack of permits. In retrospect, he admitted that nobody knew what they were doing. Much of the special effects in the film were achieved practically, for example, the sequence in which Phyllis is disemboweled, they made fake intestines with condoms filled with fake blood and sand. For the murder sequence of Sadie in the swimming pool, Rain had a pouch full of fake blood attached underneath her shirt as well as blood capsules in her mouth, which she manually punctured. Lucy Grantham recalled during the scene in which Hess's character tells her to "piss her pants," that she in fact urinated in her jeans. Due to its graphic content, the film sparked protests from the public throughout autumn of 1972 who called for its removal from local theaters. The Paris Cinema, a movie theater in Pittsfield, Massachusetts, issued an open letter to these criticisms in September 1972, in which it was noted: After carefully considering all the circumstances, management has decided to continue to show the movie. This difficult decision was predicated on the following considerations: The film relates to a problem that practically every teen-age girl and parent can identify with, yet does not pander to the subject matter. The story does not glorify violence, nor does it glorify the degenerates who perpetrate the violence ... we feel the movie is morally redeeming and does deliver an important social message. Newspaper advertisements featured lengthy statements issued by the film's producers defending it against claims that it sensationalized violence, one of which noted: "You will hate the people who perpetrate these outrages - and you should! But if a movie - and it is only a movie - can arouse you to such extreme emotion then the film director has succeeded ... The movie makes a plea for an end to all the senseless violence and inhuman cruelty that has become so much a part of the times in which we live.” It was quite bold and correct of course, although when actually watching the film none of it feels justified. Promotional material capitalised on the film's graphic content and divisive reception, featuring the now infamous tagline: "To avoid fainting, keep repeating 'It's only a movie' ...". Anecdotes as to where the advertising campaign originated vary somewhat. Cunningham claims that marketing specialist who devised the 'It's only a movie' title was watching a cut of the film with his wife, who continually covered her eyes, prompting him to tell her that it was "only a movie". but it had been used twice before: first for H.G. Lewis's 1964 splatter film Color Me Blood Red and then for William Castle's Strait-Jacket the following year. However, it is always remembered for Last House On the Left and it was so successful that many other exploitation films later used it, often with their own spin. It is genuinely an important film, although I really don’t like intellectualizing it too much as I really don’t like it. It is a necessary evil, not entertainment.