31 Days of Des' Horror Favourites: #30 Last House on the Left

Why I like it: Ouch! That image make you uncomfortable? Me too...this film is full of that kind of stuff. It's not a dental horror film like Marathon Man but it's chock full of grade-A uncomfortability.

Wayyyy back before Wes Craven went soft (do you realize he made Music of the Heart? ick...) and made a whole bunch of teenybopper bullshit horror films (and not good ones like A Nightmare on Elm Street) he made unflinchingsocial commentary like 1972's Last House on the Left.

Young Mari Collingwood and a friend are going to the city for a concert and their trouble begins when they decide, like all horror film teenagers in the 70s, to "score some dope." Their dealers turn out to be escaped convicts (I know, I know but bear with me) who kidnap them and start a cycle of terror, rape and depravity. David Hess convincingly plays the lead baddie.

What I don't like about this film is its heavy reliance on the cliched (even in the seventies) plot devices like the sexually curious and drug-using victim and the bumbling sheriff and deputy who, despite their best intentions, just can't seem to come to the rescue in time.

Only Mari's parents can save the day in a bloodbath finale that may or may not have inspired Home Alone. It may be too late. This grim film doesn't tell us much except that the enemy might be us.

Check these out:
-Straw Dogs-Dustin Hoffman and his wife move to the country to escape the violence of the city only to run into a terrifying duo of maniacs bent on rape and torture. Sam Peckinpah wrote and directed it.
-I Spit on Your Grave-Unfairly banned as a mindless slasher this film at least offers revenge for the victim of rape and torture.
-Marathon Man-check it out for previously mentioned dental horror. Whoever thought the most chilling sentence in the English language would be "Is it safe?"
-Deliverance-Not a horror film? Ask Ned Beatty' character and I'm sure he'll tell you that he'd prefer to run into Jason Voorhees than these backwood redneck psychopaths. Dueling Banjos still gives me chills.