Popcorn Lobotomy

I watched The Last House on the Left with an unsuspecting female companion, and, by the end of it, I'm pretty sure I'd convinced her I was a complete nutter. Honestly, I would have been more comfortable watching a porno with my grandmother.

Several times, my lady-friend glanced at me with an unmistakeable why-did-you-want-to-show-me-this? expression on her face, and I must admit I wholeheartedly agree with her suspicions.

Because Last House on the Left made me want to shit into my own eyeballs.

The Remake

The original Last House on the Left was released in 1972, and was budding director Wes Craven's first big hit, forming the beginning of his rise to the horror auteur we know him as today. I have not seen it, which is rare for since it's considered such a horror classic.

From what I understand, it was a shlock horror that redefined, or at least reinvigorated an entire genre. But hey, it was made before I was born, so I assume it is shit.

However, no matter how shit it may be, I think it's pretty safe to assume that the 2009 re-make was a gigantic kick in the sack for poor Wes. Here is a film that offers up glossy shock violence and nothing much more, and that, my friends, does not a good horror film make.

Just so you don't think I'm criticising without being constructive: how about a bit of atmosphere, tension, or just some plain old cheap scares?


The Story

Well, who gives a flying hoot, but essentially the story involves a group of pranksters who go around killing and raping without much rhyme or reason. There is a father and son, a girl who can't seem to keep her shirt on, and some other guy who looks creepy all the time and is a riduculous over-actor.

They come across a couple of girls, and because they are in trouble with the police, they decide they can't leave them alive, so, naturally, take them out to the forrest to torture and rape them. I must presume at this point that their rather round about methodology is solely for the audience's erotic primal pleasure - I mean, sure a bullet in the back of the head makes more sense, but what fun would that be?

Once they get the two girls into submissive positions, the father tries to get his boy to lose his raping cherry, but the boy refuses, so Dad steps in to show him how a real man acts. After the incredibly long, offensively sexuallised raping, one girl is stabbed multiple times and bleeds out, while the other is shot in the back while trying to swim away.

As an aside, I actually found this bit quite funny. The girl is established early as a champion swimmer, so her escape into water is accompanied by triumphant music because, you know, she is going to MAKE IT!!

Until her shoulder blade explodes in a chunky red spray and she rolls over limply, ensuring we get one last glimpse of her underage nipples under her wet tshirt (because obviously we find her sexually attractive at this point, after watching her get raped seductively for the previous 15 minutes) before she evidently succumbs to her wounds.

Meanwhile, Mum and Dad return to the house, unaware of what just happened to their daughter. The gang of nonsensial bad guys turn up at the house (I'm assuming at this point, that they live in the Last House on the Left, but it's never really established, and I'm sure I saw a shot which made it appear to be on the right side of the street, but whatever), also unaware of the hilarious family connections yet to be revealed.

The boy, let's call him by his Indian name, Pacowan Kiwandie Tuntungitt, which translates to "Refuses to Rape", eventually sees a photo of the girl - apparently the only photo they have of her anywhere in the house - and works out that they are mom and pop's house. He leaves a clue for them, they find it, and the hijinx ensues.

Just in case you were worried they were running out of people to injure and torture, the original girl who was shot in the back turns up at the house, after having swum for about 2 hours only to collapse on the porch clutching at the doorhandle.

What remains is basically Home Alone on acid, where the home owners fight viciously against the bad guys and essentially pick them off one by one.

The Shock

Was I shocked? Well, yes, a little, but not as shocked as I was at the end to realise I'd managed to sit through the entire thing. To be honest, most of the movie was pretty boring, and the only parts I liked were unintentionally funny.

For instance, take the scene where the mother first realises that the overacting bad guy is, in fact, her daughter's killer. She first flirts with him for 10 minutes and offers him some wine, as you would, because in no way would you be upset or outraged enough to lose control at that point.

Of course the crazy bad guy is totally taken in by her charms, despite her long awkward pauses, darting eyes, and panicky effort to stop him from going to the fridge, where the one little photograph of her daughter resides.

After wasting a bunch of everyone's time, she finally pounces. While there are clearly plenty of sharp, effective weapons in the kitchen, she manages to grab blunt object after blunt object to beat him with. She even tries to drown him in dishwater, but the crafty little kitten pulls the plug out of the sink. This gives her the opportunity to shove his hand down the garbage disposal and turn it on, which would have definitely killed him if only he'd have quit attacking her for 3 or 4 hours and focus on bleeding.

After a while, the father joins him, pelts him with a few more blunt objects before finally working out two important things: that the back of a hammer is sharper than the front, and that the head is one of the more vulnerable parts of the human body. He combines facts for an inevitable, but long overdue conclusion to the bad guy's suffering. You almost feel sorry for him by the end.

But yes, as I mentioned, there is a very offensive rape scene that just seems to go on and on. I haven't been on the internet message boards to reseach it, but I'm willing to lay down cash that there are people complaining about it all over the place.

In an extremely out-of-place scene at the end, you get to see the main bad guy wake up with his head in a microwave oven. The father turns it on and we all get to watch the bad guy's face burn off before his head completely explodes.

Yeah, because that's what a roast chicken does in a microwave, too, dumbass.

The Verdict

If there is a bigger waste of time, I have yet to find it. After The Last House on the Left was over, I found myself wishing I'd instead spent 2 hours spitting off the roofs of tall buildings and then measuring the size of the splatter below. Actually, that does appeal to me a bit, so I'll let you come up with a better example of a complete waste of time.

-1 stars, for the overt sexuallisation of the rape of a minor, which offended even this hardened old-school horror fan. And I've seen "I Spit On Your Grave"!