The Last House on the Left Blu-ray delivers great video and solid audio in this enjoyable Blu-ray release
On their way to a rock concert, two teenagers (Sandra Cassel and Lucy Grantham) are kidnapped by a gang of escaped convicts. Although they put up the fight of their lives, the girls are drugged, tossed in a car trunk and driven into the woods by the savage, murderous gang... only to wake up to a horror they could not have imagined.
I'll get this out of the way up front: I don't particularly enjoy watching The Last House on the Left, horror maestro Wes Craven's
divisive debut feature film. I make no judgments about those that do—and certainly, the film qualifies as an influential, indispensable part of the 1970s
horror canon—but personally, it just doesn't do it for me. This has nothing to do with the film's graphic, squirm-in-your-seat subject matter—torture,
rape, murder, revenge—and everything to do with its execution. Uneven and amateurish, Last House often seems like a poorly acted porn
movie with all the explicit sex removed. And if you're familiar with the back-story of the film's production, you're already aware that this is, in fact, the
case. Craven initially intended Last House to be a "hardcore" movie, but the actors convinced him that the story could stand on its own.
Craven should've already realized this, as his script is essentially an ultra-violent but dumbed down retelling of Ingmar Bergman's The Virgin
Spring, a masterful 1960 film that features the same basic plot but is thematically richer and ultimately much more rewarding.
That's not to say, though, that Last House makes no impact. It certainly can—providing you're in the right mood to experience it—
and the film stands out from other exploitation fare of its day precisely because it has a backbone that, if not entirely philosophical, at least seems
more laden with meaning. Craven wanted to shock, yes, but he also wanted to a make a point. Rebelling against his strict fundamentalist
background and inspired by gory real-life newsreels from the Vietnam war, the first-time director sought to portray violence as it is—messy, sudden,
repulsive, and always with consequences. The story is simple, following the structure laid out by The Virgin Spring—itself based on a 13th
century Swedish ballad—making only cosmetic changes in the process. On her 17th birthday, Mari Collingwood (Sandra Cassell) goes into the city
with her best friend, Phyllis (Lucy Grantham), to see a band—foreshadowing alert!—called "Bloodlust." In an attempt to score some weed before the
show, the two friends are kidnapped by a loose family of lunatic prison escapees. The leader, Krug (David A. Hess), is something of a professional
rapist/serial killer, and his son, Junior (Marc Sheffler), serves as his drugged-up slave. Rounding out the cadre are knife-toting child molester Weasel
(prolific porn director Fred Lincoln), and Sadie (Jeramie Rain), an "animal-like" bisexual psychopath. Remorseless repeat offenders all, except for
Junior, whose conscience still seems to exist somewhere beneath a heroin-induced haze.
Clearly, Mari and Phyllis are not long for this world. It's no spoiler to reveal that they're both tortured, raped and murdered in the woods not far from
Mari's house, where her square, mild-mannered parents (Gaylord St. James and Cynthia Carr) are fretting over her disappearance. Although there
are more horrors to come—this is primarily a revenge film after all, in which mom and dad unleash their mournful fury on the sub-human criminals
—this rape/murder sequence is the hardest in the film to stomach. Craven shoots it matter-of-factly, almost documentary-style, and there's no thrill
or titillation involved. When Krug forces a crying Phyllis to urinate on herself, any potential eroticism gives way to an overwhelming sense of sadness
and disgust. It's as if Craven were symbolically slaying the happy, peacenik, summer-of-love sensibility that reigned among young people in America
before Vietnam took a turn for the worst. After the murders are over—with Mari shot to death in a lake and Phyllis lying eviscerated on the shore—
Craven makes an odd but interesting choice: he tries to make us feel sympathy for the killers. He lingers on their faces—draining now of bloodlust—
and shows them bathing in the lake, trying to wash away the evidence of what they've done. By the time they arrive at Mari's home—a coincidence
that can't help but feel contrived—we know, of course, that they're going to get what's coming to them. Remember when I mentioned the horrors
to come? How about a bit-off penis and a chainsaw attack that precedes the motor-revving terror of The Texas Chainsaw Massacre by two
years?
The Last House on the Left certainly has moments of unsettling power and even outright panic, but these are often counteracted by the
film's hokier elements, like the across-the-board amateur-hour acting, the two bumbling, comic relief cop characters, and David Hess' folksy score,
which is far too literal with its lyrics, to the point of frequently narrating what we see on screen. ("Now you're by yourself, and you're feeling the
world closing in on you. / And you're asking for someone to show they care, / someone who's really there, / someone who understands.") Overall, it
makes for a strange, not entirely successful blend of campy artifice and brutal realism. For its time, the film was controversial and boundary pushing
—and there's value in that, from a cultural perspective—but Last House is no unmitigated masterpiece, especially when compared to its
predecessor, The Virgin Spring, which resonates with deeper themes of faith, redemption, the morality of revenge, and the problem of evil. I
think of the film as the bastard son of Swedish arthouse and grimy American exploitation. I may not enjoy it—not as entertainment—but I can
certainly appreciate its pedigree and the influence that it had on the future of the horror genre.
Let me put it this way: You're not going to watch The Last House on the Left for its picture quality. Shot for cheap on 16mm—and with less
than tack-sharp lenses, from the looks of it—the film has a soft, grainy quality that may be the complete opposite of eye candy, but certainly works well
for Craven's documentary-style intentions. The simple fact is, the movie is never going to look "good" by any objective standards. What we can examine,
however, is how faithfully the film has been reproduced in digital form. (As a quick aside, at Blu-ray.com we try to judge each film's picture quality on its
own merits. 28 Days Later, for instance, will never look as sharp or vivid as, say, Transformers 2, but given that it was shot on SD
video, it still earns solid marks for being true to its medium.) In this respect, the 1080p/AVC-encoded transfer of Last House that we get here is
largely a success. The film's grain structure is fully intact—there's been no attempt to smear away the chunkiness with DNR or artificially sharpen the
picture with edge enhancement—and the image coasts along on a relatively high bitrate. Yes, truly fine detail is almost completely absent, but once
again, this is a product of the way the film was shot. Color, however, looks quite strong, with dense reds and greens, balanced skin tones, and
adequately deep blacks. The print, as you'd expect, isn't in perfect shape—you'll spot occasional stains, specks, hairs, and others bits of debris—but rather
than a detriment, I find this adds to the grimy grindhouse vibe. This is certainly the best the film has ever looked on home video.
The disc's lossless, DTS-HD Master Audio 2.0 track similarly does what it can with the sometimes-murky source material. Voices carry an occasional
muffled quality—which likely can't be helped—but at no point does the dialogue ever become incomprehensible. Likewise, David Hess' goofy, Appalachia
banjo meets honky tonk meets warbling folk singer score is also less-than-pristine—it has a certain 1970s A.M. radio quality—but it sounds okay for what
it is. No complaints, really. If needed/desired, the disc also comes with English SDH, French, and Spanish subtitles.
Everything here is ported over from previous DVD releases, but there's quite a lot of content, and it's all worth checking out if you haven't seen it
before.
Audio Commentaries: We get two tracks here, the first an intelligent discussion by Director Wes Craven and Producer Sean
Cunningham, and the second a looser, more candid roundtable with actors David Hess, Marc Sheffler, and Fred Lincoln.
Still Standing: The Legacy of The Last House on the Left (SD, 14:54): A retrospective with Wes Craven, who talks about the
film's style and origin as a reaction to the Vietnam war and his own fundamentalist upbringing before segueing into a discussion of the remake.
Celluloid Crime of the Century (SD, 39:34): Blue Underground's terrific documentary about the film, told through interviews with Wes
Craven, Sean Cunningham, Jaramie Rain, Marc Sheffler, Fred Lincoln, Martin Kove, David A. Hess, and Sean Cunningham.
Scoring Last House (SD, 9:44): An interview with David Hess, who discusses his approach to the film's score.
Tales That'll Tear Your Heart Out (SD, 11:29): Footage from a never-finished anthology film that Craven co-directed. The material is
presented without sound, but it seems to be some sort of vampire/zombie short set in the west, a la Near Dark.
Deleted Scene - Mari Dying at the Lake (SD, 00:59)
Never Before Seen Footage (SD, 5:36): Of course, if you owned the DVD, you have already seen these snippets of on-location
footage, which includes extra clips from the infamous rape scene.
"It's Only a Movie" Featurette (SD, 29:01): Another retrospective documentary. There's a lot of overlap here if you've already dug
through everything else, but the more the merrier, right?
Outtakes and Dailies (SD, 14:01): Raw footage, presented without sound.
Forbidden Footage (SD, 8:12): Wes Craven, Sean Cunningham, and others talk about some of the most disturbing scenes in the
film.
Theatrical Trailer (SD, 2:00)
One last note about the special features: There's no top menu on this disc. As soon as you put it in, the film begins playing. If you want to access the
bonus features, you have to hit the "Pop-Up/Menu" button on your remote.
The Last House on the Left is an influential-but-divisive entry in the 1970s horror canon. On the one hand, it's still genuinely shocking and has
merit both as a reaction to the Vietnam war and a commentary on the way violence was and is typically portrayed on film—too sanitary, and without
consequences. That said, it hasn't necessarily aged well. It's certainly a film that should be seen by all horror fans at least once, but unlike its multi-
faceted progenitor—Bergman's The Virgin Spring—I can't say it's an experience I like to revisit with any regularity.
Blu-ray.com and MGM Home Entertainment are offering fifteen Blu-ray.com members the opportunity to win one of five different upcoming Blu-ray releases: Hannibal, Last House on the Left: Unrated Collector's Edition, Manhunter, Poltergeist II or Robocop 2. The latest ...
The Last House on the Left Blu-ray, Forum Discussions
