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In fact, Fred Lincoln, who played the knife-wielding Weasel, acted almost entirely in adult movies aside from this role. David Hess in particular gives a performance deserving of an Academy Award. Over the years, The Last House on the Left has gained a reputation that’s as queasily polarized as its own swings between savage violence and slapstick comedy. On the one hand, it’s a high-minded debasement of Ingmar Bergman’s The Virgin Spring, as much a throbbing counterculture hangover as the Rolling Stones’ Altamont documentary Gimme Shelter was two years before.
The polarization in today’s Congress has roots that go back decades
He lives in Eastern Pennsylvania where he has been known to operate a lemonade stand on the sidewalk outside his home. When he’s not writing, sleeping, or dancing, he’s sitting on his couch, taking in the best and worst music and film of the last century. Feature directorial debut for filmmaker Wes Craven, best known for the huge successful "Nightmare on Elm Street" series.
It’s All in the Execution: The Last House on the Left (
10 Horror Movies That Shouldn't Have Been Nearly As Scary As They Were - Screen Rant
10 Horror Movies That Shouldn't Have Been Nearly As Scary As They Were.
Posted: Fri, 08 Dec 2023 08:00:00 GMT [source]
I’ve never been a fan of a movie that was as equally loved and hated at the same time. So I figured it was long overdue that I wrote about Wes Craven’s Last House on the Left. I don't want to give the impression, however, that this is simply a good horror movie. It's horrifying, all right, but in ways that have nothing to do with the supernatural.
Director
It's the story of two suburban girls who go into the city for a rock concert, are kidnapped by a gang of sadistic escaped convicts and their sluttish girlfriend, and are raped and murdered. Then, in a coincidence even the killers find extreme, the gang ends up spending the night at the home of one of the girls' parents. It’s a grim little low-budget horror flick but it also exists in its own peculiar world. Yes, the actors playing Mari’s parents are not particularly…expressive (to put it nicely). The soundtrack is comprised of some very dated and semi-derivative folk and country songs. And the slapstick scenes involving the bumbling cops seem wildly out of place when they’re being intercut with scenes of abject terror.
Each lawmaker is assigned a value between those endpoints based on their voting record; the scores are designed to be comparable between Congresses and across time. The story is also based on a true incident, we're told at the beginning of the movie, but I have my doubts; I think the producers may simply be trying one of those "only the names have been changed" capers. What does come through in "Last House on the Left" is a powerful narrative, told so directly and strongly that the audience (mostly in the mood for just another good old exploitation film) was rocked back on its psychic heels. After they change out of their bloody clothes, the gang goes to the Collingwoods' home, masquerading as traveling salesmen. Later, when Junior is in the midst of heroin withdrawal, Estelle enters the bathroom to check on him and sees Mari's peace symbol necklace around his neck. She finds blood-soaked clothing in their luggage and overhears them talking about Mari's death and her disposal in a nearby lake.
Krug attempts to flee, but after being cornered by a traumatized Sadie and a chainsaw-wielding John, he is incapacitated by an electrocution booby trap. After a scuffle between her and Estelle, she falls into the backyard swimming pool where her throat is slit by Estelle. The ideological shifts in the congressional parties have occurred alongside – and, perhaps to some extent, because of – geographic and demographic shifts in their composition. Ever since, the gaps between the least conservative Republicans and least liberal Democrats in both the House and Senate have widened – making it ever less likely that there’s any common ground to find. In the Senate, the end of overlap came in 2004, when Democrat Zell Miller of Georgia retired. It’s become commonplace among observers of U.S. politics to decry partisan polarization in Congress.
He leads them to an apartment where they are trapped by the criminals. Phyllis tries to escape and reason with them, but she fails and is gang-raped. Meanwhile, Mari's unsuspecting parents prepare a surprise party for her. In this cult horror favorite from twisted writer-director Wes Craven, a pair of repulsive, sadistic escaped convicts kidnap, rape, torture and murder two teenage girls -- but the criminals have picked the wrong teens to victimize.
Producers
Iconic films of the cycle like High Tension (2003) were undoubtedly influenced by Wes Craven and the exploitation movies he helped establish in the 1970s. In fact, Alexandre Aja, the director of High Tension, cites The Last House on the Left as a direct influence on his movie. Wes Craven often told stories in interviews about people fainting or throwing up in theaters, and even of moviegoers trying to storm the projection booth and destroy the print of the movie.
When they discover their daughter’s lifeless body in the woods, they can only muster a look of mild concern. They can’t even effectively sell the scene where they’re baking a birthday cake together. When they battle it out with Krug’s gang during the film’s climax, the juxtaposition of acting styles is disorienting. To my surprise and dismay, no one else I ever watched Last House with seemed to enjoy it (with the exception of Ted, my original viewing partner). In fact, a few people even asked me halfway through the movie if we could stop watching it because it was that bad. Why did everyone dislike a movie that I felt was one of the best, most visceral films ever made?
He just thought it was stupid and it took him out of the grim reality he was looking for in the film. I believe that many viewers come into Last House expecting a gritty 1970s horror flick. Once they are confronted with all of the random goofiness sprinkled throughout, they tend to write off the film as just a bad movie because they don’t know what to make of the whole thing. It’s always been my feeling that all of the problems that people have with the film are exactly the reasons why it is so special. It’s a beautifully surreal experience that transcends normal filmmaking. It’s almost as if David Lynch tried his hand at grindhouse cinema, working off a script by John Waters.
It obviously wasn’t Tommy Wiseau’s intent to make a surreal comedy (no matter what he tried to convince the public of after the fact), but does it make the film any less genius if that’s what the finished product turned out to be? I truly believe that anything one gets out of a movie is as valid an experience as anyone else’s, regardless of the intent of the filmmakers. That being said, everyone has the right to dislike a piece of art for whatever reason they like. I just truly believe that those who can’t see beyond the intent of a movie are really missing out on some exceptional experiences in life. Mrs. Collingwood has just found out that the guests in her home are responsible for murdering her young daughter. Yet, somehow she has the presence of mind to seduce one of the killers, and it doesn’t bother her in the least to get on her knees and engage him intimately, just to reach the moment where she inflicts a severe injury on him right before the climax.
Phyllis stumbles across a cemetery where she is cornered and stabbed by Weasel. Mari convinces Junior to let her go, but her escape is halted by Krug. Mari vomits, quietly says a prayer, and walks into a nearby lake, where Krug fatally shoots her.
In doing so, he inadvertently helped shape the direction of horror for decades to come. Like the exploitation films Night of the Living Dead (1968) and The Texas Chain Saw Massacre (1974), the film has received critical reevaluation years after release, with particular praise towards the narrative and performances of Peabody and Hess. It has since achieved a cult following and received a nomination for AFI's 100 Years...100 Thrills in 2001. Distributor Hallmark Releasing, in partnership with American International Pictures, gave him and Craven funding after the box office success of Cunningham's Together (1971). In 1972, Wes Craven and Sean Cunningham set out to make a horror movie like no one had ever seen.
Decades later, it is still one of the most influential movies of all time. The second half of the film focuses on Mari’s parents (Gaylord St. James and Cynthia Carr) as they plot their revenge against their daughter’s killers. With all due respect, their acting skills are in line with something you’d expect to see on a soap opera on public access television. They don’t properly convey any of the emotions that are expected of them.
However, this still wasn't enough, and the film still got an "X" rating. Finally, Craven put all of the original footage back in, got an authentic "RATED R" seal of approval from the film board from a friend of his, put it on the film, and released it. Mari Collingwood plans to attend a concert with her friend Phyllis Stone for her seventeenth birthday. Her parents, Estelle and John, express their concern about her friendship with Phyllis but let her go and give her a peace symbol necklace. Before the concert, Mari and Phyllis encounter Junior while trying to buy marijuana.
Unlike Jason Voorhees, people like Krug and his gang really do exist, and this makes a good portion of the film very harrowing to watch. The Last House on the Left is not only one of my favorite horror films, but one of my favorite films of all time. I have seen the film countless times and it always commands my complete attention. But this movie’s reputation through the years has divided the horror film community. For every person who thinks it’s the pinnacle of grindhouse cinema, there’s another person who thinks it’s a cheap exploitation movie with bad acting and horrible music.
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