When I heard that monstrous pile of slop The Last House on the Left was getting a remake, I admit, I could taste my own bile. I’d seen the original, you see, and it began my long and mostly unpleasant association with the director with all the subtlety of an open canister of Sarin, Wes “Nerve Gas” Craven. The nickname is mine, of course—I’ve coined it for the man in the hopes it will catch on.
But anyway, remake. Yes, I had very little hope at all for this movie, and most of my hope was that somehow they couldn’t manage to do any WORSE than the original. Thus, I swallowed my bile and bought a ticket, knowing full well that I would write it off my taxes.
And sure enough, once again, now-producer Craven proved that, even with fresh mouthpieces serving as director and writer, he STILL has all the subtlety of an open canister of nerve gas.
The plot is almost eye-wateringly simple—girl goes out with friend, girl gets stoned, girl gets captured by on-the-run felons, girl gets beaten, stabbed, raped, shot at and almost killed before making it back to her parents’ lake house inches from death. Meanwhile, girl’s tormentors get caught in a thunderstorm and take shelter at girl’s parents’ lake house. Stir together, bring to a boil and pour in more fake blood than you thought possible in one movie and serve lukewarm to anyone who’ll actually sit through this dreck.
I knew, just after the first twenty minutes, that I was going to be hard-pressed to express the depth of my feeling for this movie. In fact, when I got home I had to hit an online thesaurus, wondering just how many synonyms for “reprehensible” I could dig up. I’d be needing them, you see. Thankfully, there were several available.
This newest magnificent craptacular from the Wes Craven movie machine deserves nothing so much as to be set on fire and have its ashes scattered in some barren waste where nothing would grow anyway, so as not to taint the resulting produce. This is a condemnable waste of plastic so egregious that not only should Craven et al be required to PERSONALLY apologize to everyone who wasted ten bucks and two hours on this disgrace made film, but also, they should be required to melt down their own SHOES to provide replacement plastic to the world.
I cannot be more forceful about this. The Last House on the Left is an enormous cinematic abortion that preys on the very worst of humanity and puts it before us in full multiple-speaker sound. It’s literally one atrocity after the next, and presented with the full range of Hollywood special effect work. A man’s hand will be forced into a garbage disposal after an attempt to DROWN him in soapy dishwater fails. A teenage girl will be stabbed repeatedly while almost topless because she attempted to FLEE her captors. Don’t even get me started on the sheer shame of a fully-on-camera rape scene.
And then there’s the ending. I’ve got no compunction about spoilering for you because, hopefully, it will remove your last impetus to see this godawful slop: the father of the raped girl, himself a doctor, will paralyze his daughter’s rapist from the neck down, insert the rapist’s head into a broken microwave, and start it. Seconds later, the rapist’s head explodes in a towering promontory of ooze and fake blood.
Well, congratulations. You’ve broken your Hippocratic Oath so thoroughly that you should by all rights never practice medicine again and committed vigilante justice on a scale so epic that even the BATMAN is recoiling. The PUNISHER is looking at you and saying, “Dude. What the hell.”
And from a narrative standing this ending is a nightmare. Almost as though further scenes, or an alternate ending, were cut for the DVD in advance, it’s both abrupt and gooshy, and comes as a total surprise. As in an out-of-nowhere surprise. As in no one could think of any better way to close the movie, so they resorted to some second-rate splatter effect.
Poorly made, poorly realized, poorly done, poorly conceived. There is no end to the sheer poverty of this alleged film, which exists for no other reason than to grab cash from unsuspecting horror buffs. Thus, I hope this warning reaches you in time. If you missed it opening weekend, count yourself among the truly blessed. This simply means that you have the opportunity to not fork over cash to the Craven machine and, if there is any justice, prevent them from producing yet another cinematic sleaze parade like this.
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savan patel said
March 23 2009 @ 3:41 pm
To the guy that wrote this review.
You my friend are an idiot. You think cause you know a lot “big” words it give you the right such garbage. I saw the film. Did I like it? No much. But I also didn’t think it was as bad as you think it is. I’ve talked to a bunch of people who saw it and liked it. You’re opinion and review is just as bad if not worse than what you wrote about the movie. Relax moron, And stop over over wirting your reviews or you will eventually be out of a job.
Alicia said
March 24 2009 @ 9:22 am
I just saw this movie last night and personally after the first hour of the movie I couldn’t stand it any more. I got up and walked out of the movie only to let my boyfriend follow me to the game room while I waited on our other group of friends to finish watching the movie. If I was a mean person I would demand my money back but I’m not that kind of person. With all that said Last House on the Left was a HUGE let down and I will now think twice about seeing a movie anything like it again. No stars for me and there never will be any.
annabel said
March 28 2009 @ 5:34 pm
You know what
I watched the film
and I feel exactly the same way
Perfect review!
annabel said
March 28 2009 @ 5:37 pm
I should have seen this review earlier…
I feel so sorry for my money
I should buy a DQ.
Steve Anderson said
March 28 2009 @ 7:02 pm
Savan– I happen to be the guy who wrote this review…and I’m puzzled. You didn’t like this movie much, but because I didn’t like it LESS than you did, you think I’m just throwing out big words? That just plain doesn’t make sense.
Annabelle and Alicia–good to see there’s still some common sense in the theatregoing public.
She said
April 6 2009 @ 11:49 pm
I couldn’t watch the movie either. I left the theater about the time when the convict family came back to the hotel. Just too creepy altogether. No one really needs to see that.
Melbell said
April 9 2009 @ 9:54 pm
My boyfriend told me that if i thought Paris Hilton getting a pole through her head was funny (the monstrosity reffered to as the “The House of Wax”) than I should watch this movie because a rapist gets his head blown up in a microwave. The only problem is, he forgot to mention that that particualar mess was at the END of the movie. So i sat there in the theater watching this guys hands get cut up in the garbage disposol and the mermaid from aquamarine getting raped and then shot while her mother shoots some girl who can’t seem to remember to wear a shirt thinking “Where is the blown up microwave head??” So my story of this movie is, I stayed through this entire sludge of a movie just for one hoakie scene that I didnt even to see because, guess what, some 12 year old punk set off the fire alarm and it cut off right when the dad puts the guys head in the microwave. I beg to the lord that he could find some way to give me my money back.
Jessica said
August 21 2009 @ 12:14 pm
I’m really surprised to see that no one liked this movie like I did? I watched it with my boyfriend, and we both thought it was good. Maybe it was too gory for all of you? And that’s why you couldn’t stand to watch anymore of it? But I have literally seen every horror/thriller/suspense movie out there, no kidding, so it didn’t bother me at all. The only thing that bothered me was the rape scene. I really liked this movie. I would like to say that I am seriously a horror, thriller, suspense movie addict and I have watched all of them, no exaggeration. I have seen some brutal scenes in movies. Example. The scene in one of the Saw movies when they are cutting open Jigsaw’s head and peeling back the skin. That didn’t even bother me at all considering how many of those kinds of movies I’ve seen. Another example. The scene in Mirrors when the leading man’s sister is attacked by the people in the mirrors and they force her jaw completely off. That didn’t even make my skin crawl the least bit because I’ve seen so many nasty scenes just like that one. HOWEVER, The Last House on the Left seriously made me want to throw up in some scenes, and I’m not kidding. The rape scene was extremely prolonged. It wasn’t too graphic. It didn’t show any specific parts or anything. But, you could hear the noises of his body clashing into hers and it was literally a five to eight minute rape scene of him making grunting noises, her screaming a little bit, and the noises of his body hitting hers. I was getting extremely irritated and could NOT wait for that scene to be over. I was aggravated that it even went on for that long. Other than that, it’s pretty gory. But it exceeded all of my expectations. I am never too surprised by a horror and thriller movie anymore, they are normally all the same. Throughout the movie, I kept saying, I bet you so & so will do THIS.. or, How much you wanna bet THIS is gonna happen? and nothing I ever bet was going to happen, happened! Most of the events in the movie were unexpected and very surprising to me. This movie is definitely not like all the other movies of it’s genre, it’s different, unique, and I really enjoyed that. Mary proves to seriously be a BEAST! She survives through the worst of things and if she was a real person, she would deserve a trophy. This movie was great!
I really don’t see why none of you liked this movie? Sara Paxton (Mary) proved to be a really great actress in this movie, she did an excellent job. And like I said before, this movie is unique. It broke the stereotypes and barriers or most horror flicks. It is not like all of the other movies. It kept me guessing and it proved me wrong in many different scenes. I would like to say, to the person who made this movie, GOOD JOB!
I am very satisfied with it. Who cares what all of those other people say? They obviously don’t know what they’re talking about. This is a great movie. I’ve literally seen them ALL. And this was really good.
Jessica said
August 21 2009 @ 12:21 pm
ohhh and after reading Melbell’s comment, I realized something.
there was a scene that made me completely mad & just irritated 100%. When they blow his head up in the microwave?
THAT WAS COMPLETELY UNECESSARY! or however you spell that word. haha. but come on, they should’ve just made him die in the house. and then maybe do a little “6 months later” thing and show how happy the family is. or maybe even have them take the paralyzed guy to a hospital or to a prison. but blow his head up? ha. i just thought that pushed it too far. i thought it was just dumb.
now, my boyfriend said, “well he just wanted to hear him beg for his life” because in the scene where Mary’s dad and her rapist are battling it out, the rapist says, “do you want to hear how tight your little homecoming queen was?” and the dad says, “no, i want to hear you beg for your life.” which never really happened. mary’s dad tried to get back at the rapist, only to end up on the floor, with the rapist trying to kill him again. but in the end, when the mother hits the rapist on the head with a fire extinguisher, he is knocked unconcious. he never really begs for his life.
so..what my boyfriend was saying is that when the dad found out he wasn’t dead, just paralyzed from the neck down..he knew that he could finally kill him and make him beg for his life. because he could still talk.
but..still. i thought that scene should have just been discarded.
otherwise, i loved the movie!
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