Was The Last House on the Left (2009) too violent?

It's a hard movie to decide on if I like it or not, cause I felt that maybe the violence was too graphic and crossed the line maybe. I am going by the theatrical version as I did not watch the 'unrated' one.

Basically characters are stabbed, which I don't mind, but the director chose to do close ups on the stab ones, every one of them if I'm correct. Now in movie like say... Terminator 2 to compare, when the T-1000 stabs someone, they don't cut to close ups on each indvidual stabbing, minus Sarah Connor's at the end.

But The Last House on the Left seemed to have a gore fetish, like when they introduce the doctor/dad character, his first scenes is doing an operation on a patient that bleeding quite badly, and then later when he is stitching up another character's nose, they close up right on the holes in the skin that the suture is being run through.

Also the villain death in the very last shot was very gory, and I felt they could just cut to black and we hear a sound rather, than actually be shown the exploding gore we were shown.

But what do you think, am I being too prudish on this, or was their a gore fetishism here, that made the material more exploitative?

I thought the original was worse in that regard. That being said, the original was a product of its time. It was a statement on the Vietnam war supposedly and had emotional weight behind it. It's hauntingly tragic seeing the parents look at the innocent birthday party decorations to realise their daughter has been brutalised and they snap and give as good as they get.

The remake was meh, was unnecessary, added nothing to the original, and therefore felt gratuitous. I definitely see where you're coming from, and I also found the final scene to be quite stupid.

I don't remember it being especially violent but then it depends on what you're used to.

But in the original they didn't close up on every stabbing, and Wes Craven kept the camera more of a distance. For example, when they stab the girl in the forrest in the original, they do not have the camera on the stabbings directly. The remake closes up and shows them all directly.

When the dad kills the guy with the chainsaw in the original, we do not actually see the chainsaw going into the guy. Where as in the remake we actually get a graphic shot of the guy's head exploding.

So the original was less graphic in my opinion because of that.

I instantly thought of them pulling out the intestines but yeah, a lot of it is implied!

I love the original and have always found it to be truly sick and disturbing. I do not remember the remake well, but I remember thinking it was light weight. I think I'd like to try it again, maybe in the next couple of days.

The remake has a really good middle section with a really good hitchockian build up with the necklace, that I love. It also doesn't have the two dumb cops from the original which I felt were too out of place with the original, and also didn't really add anything to original's plot either.

But the remake is more up close and graphic on the gore. Yes the original had an intestine scene, but it was so quick cut and they didn't close up too much on it, so I felt it was done in a less exploitative way compared to the gory parts of the remake.

I didn’t mind the gore but that rape scene was too much. I’m usually not very timid but this thing kept going...felt like minutes. Was wrong of the director imo, especially as the person was meant to be young. Really distasteful. I don’t know if there’s a shorter cut or something but that’s how I remember it.

I saw the theatrical cut on DVD. I just watched some of the unrated cut to compare and the rape is far more graphic on the unrated cut. The theatrical cut is better for cutting a good portion of the rape down.

If this is the case, I should like it more than I remember. Now I am anxious to watch it again, and I'll make sure it's the unrated version.

But the rape is more graphic in the unrated cut, so I think you should stick to the theatrical cut probably.

As for the theatrical cut, I don't know if I felt it was wrong of the director to show the rape for a few minutes, as I felt that the rape would realistically take at least a few minutes. Maybe they could have just done a fade to later, but then we the audience, might not feel has much hatred for the character, compared to if we actually saw the rape (shrug).

Believe me it won't be graphic enough.

Lol glad I helped

I say let a 1000 flowers bloom.

I thought the remake was a bit above average as far as the direction was concerned, but man, that rape scene... Rough stuff to watch!

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I like hardcore violence and id assume that would be part of the appeal of a film like this. Even rape in film rarely bothers me. Hell im a weirdo who likes really bleak films more than happy feel good stuff.

Yeah I know the movie was trying to be dark but I felt that by closing up on all the gore, like they did, it felt like it was trying too hard maybe, as if the audience needed to be spoonfed it all, if that makes sense.

I'm watching it tonight

Watched it again last night and didn't think it was any more violent than the average modern horror that isn't supernatural. The rape was so so; I've seen much worse many times. I think the original is much more sick and disturbing. I also thought it was terrible.

Yea it’s not a great film. Terrible end with the cgi microwave death.