The Last House on the Left 1972

The Last House on the Left is a brutal, gritty, morality tale about not going with a stranger into an apartment for drugs...or maybe, just be more aware of your surroundings and don't follow people you don't know to get drugs. Get your drugs more in public so you don't run the risk of getting killed by some escaped prisoners. Or it's just a movie about a group of psychopaths who kidnapped two girls, torture and kill them, and inadvertantly stay at the home of one of the killed girls. That's it. The morality is, after you kill some random girls, make sure you don't stay at their parents home.

<img src="lasthouse.jpg" alt="The Last House on the Left.">

Photo Credit: Sean S. Cunningham Films

Released: Apr 30, 1972

Runtime: 84 mins

Director: Wes Craven

Writer: Wes Craven, Ulla Isaksson

Actors: Sandra Peabody, Lucy Grantham, David Hess

PLOT

Two teenagers go into the city for a concert. When they try to find some drugs, they are kidnapped, tortured, and murdered by a group of psychopaths..

MY THOUGHTS

For a gritty, grindhouse type of movie, there are only six kills. The two girls and the four psychopaths. Most of the kills are pretty basic, there's shootings, stabbings, and a chainsaw death. I guess the memorable death is Fred's (Fred Lincoln), where Estelle (Mari's mother, played by Cynthia Carr) is ummm...."pleasuring" him and proceeds to bite off his penis. Ouch! But I would say the torture and rape of Phyllis (Lucy Grantham) and Mari (Sandra Peabody) are brutal enough to be memorable.

Unfortunately for Sandra Peabody, the actors who play the bad guys were, I guess, method actors. David Hess, Fred Lincoln, and Jeramie Rain stayed in character even while not taping, thus Sandra Peabody was harrassed continuously even when not in front of the camera. This means that the crying, screaming, disgust, and fear coming from Mari were real.

I just have a hard time believing that Estelle would willingly go down on one of her daughters murderers. Yes, she bites his penis off, but as a woman, I don't know if I would have been able to do that so calmly. Not to say it's the actress's fault. It's more the writing than the acting.

Now David Hess. His character Krug is horrifying. Very evil between what he does to the girls and the cruel treatment of his son Junior. Getting him to killl himself was just so sad and maddening.

The plot is a basic rape/revenge, though the revenge part is played out by Mari's parents instead of the victims. Phyllis and Mari are two teen girls who go into the city to watch a band play. While there they decide to get some marijuana and this is where the trouble begins.

We also see that two escaped criminals Krug and Fred hide out with Sadie (Krug's girlfriend) and Junior (Krug's drug addicted son). Junior is chilling outside when Phyllis and Mari approach him asking for drugs. He tells them to follow him and they do.

Once in the apartment the girls realize their mistake. Krug and Fred proceed to mess with the girls and Phyllis proceeds to get raped. While we see this, we go back and forth between this and Mari's parents decorating their house because it's Mari's birthday. It's so sad. (I actually like how they switch back and forth between the scenes: sad with the torture, then excitement and happiness at the house).

The next day the girls are put into the trunk of the car and are driven off into the woods. Unfortunately for the gang, their car breaks down near Mari's house. Mari realizes this when they are taken out of the car and walked into the woods. We get a long scene of them messing with the girls and we get a really long scene where Phyllis runs off with Fred and Sadie chasing after her.

While they are chasing Phyllis, Mari tries to get Junior to help her. She even gives her the necklace that her parents gave her for her birthday. He does take off with her but Krug catches them.

They kill the girls and leave Mari in the water. Krug and his gang clean up and head back to the car. They realize there's a house and go to it. By this time the parents had already called the cops (don't get me started on the cops in this movie. They are beyond useless), and they already left by the time Krug gets there. The parents let them stay the night so they can get their car fixed in the morning.

Eventually, the bad guys realize whose house it is but just thinks it's funny. Estelle sees the necklace they gave Mari on Junior. They end up finding Mari's body and bring it into the house. That's when they start getting revenge. Now, I have to comment on the fact that Estelle seems to do most of the work. She dispatches two of them (including performing oral sex on one of them!) while her husband takes care of Krug. Now granted, Krug is the tougher one and he gets beaten up by Krug, but still. He only takes care of one person. Junior dies by his own hand (well, with Krug's help of course). 

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Overall, a decent watch. Not a favorite in the rape/revenge. I feel like I Spit on Your Grave did a better job. But I still would recommend it. Especially knowing it's Wes Craven's first film. Check it out!

And now for your Forever Final Girl Exclusive…Did you know?:

  • A mixture of red and blue food coloring mixed with caramel syrup was used for the fake blood, which contrary to most film "blood", actually looks real.

  • When this movie was first released in '72, most critics found it disturbing. However, Roger Ebert gave it 3 and half stars and he got letters from people asking him how he could possibly support a movie like this.

  • Originally scripted as a hardcore pornographic film, with all actors and crew being committed to filming it as such. However, after shooting began, Craven decided to rewrite the script to remove the explicit sex.

  • When fledgling director Wes Craven took this film to the MPAA, they gave it an X rating. Wanting an R rating, Craven went back and removed several minutes of footage. However, this still wasn't enough and the film still got an X rating. Once again Craven removed footage, but that still wasn't enough. Finally, Craven put all of the original footage back in, got a Rated R from the film board from a friend of his, put it on the film, and released it.

  • In 1984, it was banned as a "video nasty", and remained that way until 2002 when it was passed with around 30 seconds of cuts for an 18 rating, ending a 28 year streak of being banned. It was finally passed fully uncut by the BBFC in March 2008.

  • This movie predated the modern slasher trend by 2 years. Black Christmas, and The Texas Chain Saw Massacre, which are both considered the first prototype modern American Slashers, came out in 1974, while this movie came out in 1972.

  • Two future Friday the 13th directors worked on this film, Sean S. Cunningham and Steve Miner.

  • David Hess, Fred J. Lincoln, and Marc Sheffler improvised a lot of their dialogue.

  • Fred J Lincoln, who played Krug gang member Weasel, has said he deeply regrets making this movie. This is odd, considering Lincoln appeared in porn movies before and after Last House, and he has never said he regrets those, but those movies were not violent, and banned in several countries. Lincoln also helped choreograph some of the more violent scenes in the movie.

  • David Hess, who plays Krug in the film, provides the vocals to the songs "Wait for the Rain" and "Water Song/ Sadie and Krug." He also performed the theme song "The Road Leads to Nowhere".

  • Sandra Peabody had a horrible time filming this movie, and felt traumatized. She was uncomfortable filming the sex scenes, and the Krug gang actors, in an overenthusiastic attempt to be method, harassed her off-screen as well. Another person who was disgusted by the whole project was Weasel actor Fred J Lincoln, who says he regrets making the movie. Both Peabody and Lincoln refuse to talk about the movie in interviews. Although Lucy Grantham and David Hess, who played Phyllis and Krug respectively, were quite comfortable during the filming, and have talked about the movie proudly in interviews.

  • Sean Cunningham has said for years when he would tell people he produced this movie people would get up and walk away from him, as if he were a porn or a snuff director of some sort. (He said the same thing would happen to Wes Craven). When Cunningham followed this movie with Friday the 13th, film critic Gene Siskel wrote that Cunningham was "one of the most despicable creatures ever to infect the film industry."

  • The house the Collingwoods live in was owned by producer Sean S. Cunningham's parents.

  • The derelict dollhouse in the woods seen during Phyllis' murder scene wasn't a prop but was actually found in the wooded shooting location.

  • There are two main cameo's: Director Wes Craven's son plays the little boy who has his balloon popped by Krug Stillo's cigar. And Steve Miner plays the hippie taunting the sheriff and deputy.

Check out my other reviews here: Forever Final Girl

Let’s get into the rankings:

Kills/Blood/Gore: 3/5

Sex/Nudity: 2.5/5

Scare factor: 2.5/5

Enjoyment factor: 3/5

My Rank: 2.75/5

IMDB: 5.9/10

Rotten Tomatoes: critics:  6.2/10  audience:  5/10

Letterboxd: 3/5