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#648 - The Last House on the Left
Dennis Iliadis, 2009
Two teenage girls end up becoming victims of a family of vicious criminals.
It's quite the person who looks at a film like Ingmar Bergman's The Virgin Spring and decides to make a more directly graphic and exploitative version of that, then it's yet another person who decides that said version could use its own remake. Such is the case with The Last House on the Left, which takes Wes Craven's 1972 cinematic debut and presumably decides to update it so as to match up with the sensibilities of a modern horror-movie audience. I saw Craven's version several years ago and remember liking it at the time, though I'm not entirely sure I'd extend it such favour these days. As such, it falls to the remake to suffer my ire. It follows the same basic plot about a teenage girl (Sara Paxton) and her overprotective parents (Monica Potter and Tony Goldwyn) going on holiday to their vacation home located in - where else? - the woods. Despite her parents' well-meaning objections, she opts to hang out with her friend (Martha MacIsaac). However, their rebellious venture takes a turn for a worse when MacIsaac's plan to smoke weed with a hoodie-wearing loner (Spencer Treat Clark) is disrupted by the arrival of his incredibly deranged and violent family, which consists of his father (Garret Dillahunt), mother (Riki Lindhome), and uncle (Aaron Paul), all of whom have just come from busting Dillahunt out of police custody. From there the two girls are tormented by this extremely dysfunctional family before things take an extremely troublesome turn...
It's been long enough that I've forgotten a lot of what happened in Craven's version, though the tone stuck out because of its nature as a low-rent '70s horror. This extended to a humourous element that did stick out like a sore thumb, especially when the film cut away from its more tense and horrific scenes to a broadly comical sub-plot involving a hapless sheriff and deputy. There's no such respite in Iliadis' version, which is at once a benefit and a hindrance in this case. The plot is simple, which made sense when Bergman was using it as a backbone for another one of his films examining themes such as the human condition and the complexities of morality and religion; in the context of a straight horror, there's not much examination of anything that hasn't already served as the basis for many horror movies before it. There's the usual implicit demonisation of drug use and youthful irresponsibility in the first half; meanwhile, the second half is built on a very literal example of class warfare that probably doesn't bear spoiling if you're not familiar with this film or its aforementioned predecessors. As such, the first half becomes a rather unpleasant chore to put up with as the villains put the film's heroines through a fairly graphic ordeal (complete with the odd escape attempt). As a result, the film doesn't really become worth watching until its back half, where the family are forced to take refuge from a rainstorm and unwittingly initiate a dangerous game with the owners of the home they visit.
There are a couple of interesting tweaks in this version of The Last House on the Left, especially in how it plays things extremely seriously; there's no diverting to wacky sheriff shenanigans whatsoever, while the violence on display isn't comically gruesome (with the possible exception of the film's final scene, which does undermine all that's come before it in its grossly excessive execution). Having some recognisable career actors thrown into the mix rather than a bunch of unknowns does at least guarantee some decent performances, especially from the incredibly versatile Dillahunt (though it's difficult to watch Paul and think of him as anyone but Jesse Pinkman even in this particularly nasty role). Unfortunately, while the dedication evident in this film's approach is somewhat respectable, it's ultimately wasted in this context. The film obviously isn't aiming for the same lofty artistry that defined The Virgin Spring, but its attempt to provide a more serious reiteration of Craven's pulpy shocker is compromised a bit too frequently for its own good. I'm willing to consider the possibility that Craven's film wasn't that good to begin with and that Iliadis' feature was especially doomed as a result, but even on its own merits it's an erratic excuse for a thriller that can't escape its exploitative origins no matter how hard it tries (and that's assuming it even is trying).
Dennis Iliadis, 2009
Two teenage girls end up becoming victims of a family of vicious criminals.
It's quite the person who looks at a film like Ingmar Bergman's The Virgin Spring and decides to make a more directly graphic and exploitative version of that, then it's yet another person who decides that said version could use its own remake. Such is the case with The Last House on the Left, which takes Wes Craven's 1972 cinematic debut and presumably decides to update it so as to match up with the sensibilities of a modern horror-movie audience. I saw Craven's version several years ago and remember liking it at the time, though I'm not entirely sure I'd extend it such favour these days. As such, it falls to the remake to suffer my ire. It follows the same basic plot about a teenage girl (Sara Paxton) and her overprotective parents (Monica Potter and Tony Goldwyn) going on holiday to their vacation home located in - where else? - the woods. Despite her parents' well-meaning objections, she opts to hang out with her friend (Martha MacIsaac). However, their rebellious venture takes a turn for a worse when MacIsaac's plan to smoke weed with a hoodie-wearing loner (Spencer Treat Clark) is disrupted by the arrival of his incredibly deranged and violent family, which consists of his father (Garret Dillahunt), mother (Riki Lindhome), and uncle (Aaron Paul), all of whom have just come from busting Dillahunt out of police custody. From there the two girls are tormented by this extremely dysfunctional family before things take an extremely troublesome turn...
It's been long enough that I've forgotten a lot of what happened in Craven's version, though the tone stuck out because of its nature as a low-rent '70s horror. This extended to a humourous element that did stick out like a sore thumb, especially when the film cut away from its more tense and horrific scenes to a broadly comical sub-plot involving a hapless sheriff and deputy. There's no such respite in Iliadis' version, which is at once a benefit and a hindrance in this case. The plot is simple, which made sense when Bergman was using it as a backbone for another one of his films examining themes such as the human condition and the complexities of morality and religion; in the context of a straight horror, there's not much examination of anything that hasn't already served as the basis for many horror movies before it. There's the usual implicit demonisation of drug use and youthful irresponsibility in the first half; meanwhile, the second half is built on a very literal example of class warfare that probably doesn't bear spoiling if you're not familiar with this film or its aforementioned predecessors. As such, the first half becomes a rather unpleasant chore to put up with as the villains put the film's heroines through a fairly graphic ordeal (complete with the odd escape attempt). As a result, the film doesn't really become worth watching until its back half, where the family are forced to take refuge from a rainstorm and unwittingly initiate a dangerous game with the owners of the home they visit.
There are a couple of interesting tweaks in this version of The Last House on the Left, especially in how it plays things extremely seriously; there's no diverting to wacky sheriff shenanigans whatsoever, while the violence on display isn't comically gruesome (with the possible exception of the film's final scene, which does undermine all that's come before it in its grossly excessive execution). Having some recognisable career actors thrown into the mix rather than a bunch of unknowns does at least guarantee some decent performances, especially from the incredibly versatile Dillahunt (though it's difficult to watch Paul and think of him as anyone but Jesse Pinkman even in this particularly nasty role). Unfortunately, while the dedication evident in this film's approach is somewhat respectable, it's ultimately wasted in this context. The film obviously isn't aiming for the same lofty artistry that defined The Virgin Spring, but its attempt to provide a more serious reiteration of Craven's pulpy shocker is compromised a bit too frequently for its own good. I'm willing to consider the possibility that Craven's film wasn't that good to begin with and that Iliadis' feature was especially doomed as a result, but even on its own merits it's an erratic excuse for a thriller that can't escape its exploitative origins no matter how hard it tries (and that's assuming it even is trying).