I had heard a lot about this film before I saw it being a fan of horror, and also a film student who had spent significant time studying horror films. In Australia 'Last House on the Left' is not available - it was banned on release and this ban has never (to my knowledge) been lifted, so I obtained it though a mail-order pirate (sorry to Wes Craven for missing out on the royalties ... but you can blame the Australian censor for that). It is not a nice film to watch. It is violent, cruel and relentless - but it is important. I recently saw 'American Nightmare', a documentary on American horror in the 60s and 70s and Wes Craven spoke about his feelings when he made 'Last House on the Left'. He said that when it was made he was a very angry young man. Scenes from the film were spliced together with a montage of scenes from the Vietnam war, the shooting of students at Penn State, the burning of blacks in the South of the US, and other horrific scenes. Wes' anger at the society that he was living in, manifested itself into a violent and cruel film where two teenagers, who are going to see a rock band and trying to score pot (hippies?) are killed by a gang of psychotics. A simple metaphor is that of the violent death of the sixties flower children ... and a death to innocence. The second part of the film where we see average people, do violent things, is perhaps not so unlike taking an average American kid and sending him off to slaughter a bunch of Vietnamese. There really are countless metaphors in this film especially within the context of its time. I don't recommend it for the faint hearted ... I also don't recommend it for people who like violence for violence's sake. The violence has got to be seen for what it is.
Review of The Last House on the Left
