The Last House On The Left (1972) *

Last House On The Left is an example of early 1970's exploitation cinema that deals with Mari (Sandra Cassell) and her friend Phyllis (Lucy Grantham) as they indulge on the eve of Mari becoming a woman ie. turning seventeen years old. They go to a concert in the big, bad city and wind up in the hands of Krug (David Hess) and his gang of fugitives. In the process of heading for Canada both girls are tortured, raped, and eventually killed. Ironically, their car breaks down in front of the home of Mari's parents (Gaylord St. James and Cynthia Carr). The group spends the night at their house posing as traveling insurance salesmen, but what happens when Mari's parents find out who they really are and what they did.


So what is Last House On The Left? Is it an early work of genius from Wes Craven? A masterpiece that showed a man that was well on his way to create films like The Hills Have Eyes and Nightmare On Elm Street? Is this effect doubled because it was produced by Sean "Friday The 13th" Cunningham? This is why the legend of this movie has grown as much as it has- because of the folks involved in it. This film is no different than the hundreds of other drive-in exploitation films that were being pumped out of various producers garages in the early 1970's. It's no better and no worse. A bad script, bad acting, a lack of money, and an inexperienced director makes this film almost laughable if it wasn't for the violence on the screen. That's the key to a film like this and I Spit On Your Grave. A quote comes to mind when thinking about these two films. One comes from Roger Ebert's original review of Spit in which he discusses a fellow patron at the theater he was watching the film at saying "that was a good one" at the end of one of the numerous rapes scenes in that film. There's an audiences for stuff like this. It's like porn. Screw the plot, as long as it has that stuff and an unsatisfying conclusion.


Just look at this like a rough draft for some of the films that Wes Craven would make later. It's his first one so we can't be to hard on the guy. it was the genre in 1972. But a classic of horror cinema? If that's the case then you can call a used piece of toilet paper a classic too.