VEILED THREATS by Phil Mershon
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    • Hurry Sundown
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      • Broadway Danny Rose
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      • Radio Days
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      • The Man Who Knew Too Much (1934)
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THE LAST HOUSE ON THE LEFT
Written and directed by Wes Craven
Starring Sandra Peabody, David Hess
Released in 1972
Picture
 It's sadistic revenge drive-in horror movie night here, where we bring you our famous in progress review of the first feature film bearing the writer/director credits for Wes Craven. As you may have guessed, the film is The Last House on the Left (1972), a movie based on the story conveyed in an Ingmar Bergman film called The Virgin Spring (1960). Bergman's film stirred a bit of controversy upon release and even found itself banned in parts of Texas because of its depiction of a particularly brutal rape. Craven's film was far more shattering and found itself awash in controversy that actually helped promote this movie (budgeted at less than $90,000) into the ten million dollar zone. 
    One thing must be understood going in. This is a horror movie. What happens in this film is horrible. You would not want to be one of the victims and you would not want to be one of the perpetrators. You would not want to be close to either group. Chances are you wouldn't want to be the parents of the victims, even though it's the parents who seek to balance the scales of justice. You certainly would not want to be the two idiot cops who are only in the film to confuse us, which is part of what I'll be bold and refer to as Craven's style. 
     One of the things about this film that continues to disturb many people all these years later is that the inserted scenes with the sheriff and his deputy have their humorous elements, yet those scenes are invariably inserted between incidents of vile torture and brutality happening not far away. Plus bad guy David Hess, who plays Krug, the leader of the sadistic gang, also gets to sing the songs in the movie and the songs are all upbeat bluegrass or country rock numbers. So on the one hand we are properly repulsed by some elongated and grisly stuff initiated by Krug, Weasel and their accomplices against Mari and Phyllis, two seventeen year olds out for a fun evening at the rock show. On the other hand, we have chirpy music and clownish cops punctuating the proceedings for no apparent reason other than to demarcate the distinction between the naive wholesomeness of the law and order boys and the depraved actions of some savage sex offenders. When Mari tells her Dad that nobody wears bras anymore, we're a little surprised at her candid approach with her pop. Yet we also suspect that what's really going on is that her fascination with her own developing physique is going to parallel with some unwanted trouble. After all, they didn't call this an exploitation film for nothing.
    The two girls are out looking for some Colombian red bud smoking material when they happen upon Krug's junkie son. He says he can hook the two up and leads them to their doom. Krug and Weasel have escaped prison and joined Junior and Sadie on a crime spree of torture and delight. To give you one example (one that back then caused a lot of people to freak out--and I'll bet it still does), out in the woods, Krug orders Phyllis to piss her pants. She does it. She does it because she is afraid what will happen if she refuses. 
    I don't doubt for one second that there are bad folks out there who would get their kicks doing something very much like what happens in this film. I imagine they'd think themselves fairly cool and removed from Pleasant Valley Sunday, the way the four bad folks in this movie do. We're accustomed to seeing that kind of gang mentality in gangster movies from the 1940s. What no one was expecting and the reason this film remains noteworthy all these years later is that it is the parents who act out the revenge. And that, in a strange way, is an attempt to make a moral statement, something that did not always happen in a drive-in knife flick.
    Moral statement? Am I nuts? Yes, possibly, but it also happens that in this particular case I may also be correct. That's because in its own occasionally sloppy way, The Last House is an allegory for certain atrocities that were taking place in Vietnam. When the cops finally get to the house where the parents have systematically taken care of business, there is not much doubt but what these two representatives of authority are going to cover up the crime. Now we are never explicitly told this and it must be admitted that subtlety is not exactly an overwhelming component of this movie. But one needn't be Kreskin to figure out that the cops are going to side with the parents because of what the bad guys did to the two young girls. So while this movie may go about its subject in a way that you will feel is somewhat less than admirable (and you may be right about that), it does suggest that the history of violence is that it (a) begets more violence, and (b) that people tend to be more sympathetic to what they consider revenge than to other motivations when it comes to violent behavior. Hey, at least this crazy thing offers an idea, which is much more than most of the grindhouse movies of that time were doing.
    Incidently, Craven reportedly worked with Rogue Films on the 2009 remake, although you won't find his name attached to the IMDB listing, probably because the remake was so grossly inferior. The original, while not exactly earth-shattering in its visuals, does have the advantage of starring Hess, one of the most underrated villains you've ever loathed.   
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  • Home
  • Links
  • The Deluge
    • Veiled Threats >
      • 1939-1945
      • 1946-1963
      • 1964-1975
      • 1976-1985
      • Born Losers
      • Don't Look Back
      • Bonnie and Clyde
      • Cool Hand Luke
      • The Graduate
      • Up Tight!
      • Cycle Savages
      • Wild in the Streets
      • Never a Dull Moment
      • Yellow Submarine
      • Night of the Living Dead
      • Faces
      • The Love Bug
      • Midnight Cowboy
      • Easy Rider
      • Bob & Carol & Ted & Alice
      • Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid
      • They Shoot Horses, Don't They?
      • The Magic Christian
      • Sweet Sweetback's Baadasssss Song
      • The Landlord
      • The Ballad of Cable Hogue
      • Getting Straight
      • The Bird with the Crystal Plumage
      • Five Easy Pieces
      • Godard in America
      • Gimme Shelter
      • Little Big Man
      • The Boys in the Band
      • Joe
      • The Garden of the Finzi-Continis
      • The Big Boss
      • There's a Girl in my Soup
      • The Liberation of L B Jones
      • Klute
      • The French Connection
      • Willie Dynamite
      • Helter Skelter
      • King: A Filmed Record
      • Get Carter
      • Harold and Maude
      • Panic in Needle Park
      • Across 110th Street
      • And Soon the Darkness
      • Deliverance
      • Rolling Thunder
      • Super Fly
      • Busting
      • The Ruling Class
      • The Harder They Come
      • Day of the Jackal
      • Play Misty For Me
      • The Jezebels
      • Sacco & Vanzetti
      • Badlands
      • Cold Turkey
      • Soldier Blue
      • American Graffiti
      • The Falcon and the Snowman
      • Watership Down
      • Scarecrow
      • Walking Tall
      • Frances
      • The Coca-Cola Kid
      • Bob Roberts
      • Bad Company
      • We Are Marshall
      • Patton
      • The Natural
      • The Crossing Guard
      • Reds
      • The Spook Who Sat by the Door
      • Mud
      • Who is Harry Nilsson
      • Ornette: Made in America
      • Six Degrees of Separation
      • This Film is Not Yet Rated
      • Incident at Oglala
      • That Championship Season
      • The Pope of Greenwich Village
      • Little Murders
      • Assault on Precinct 13
      • Capote
      • Inglourious Basterds
      • The Friends of Eddie Coyle
      • Scorpio
      • The Taking of Pelham One Two Three
      • A New Leaf
      • Seven Psychopaths
      • The Last House on the Left
      • The Deer Hunter
      • Let the Right One In
      • Colour Me Kubrick
      • A Time to Kill
      • A Scanner Darkly
      • Salem's Lot
      • Roman Polanksi: Wanted and Desired
      • The Seven-Ups
      • The Contender
      • Hoffa
      • The Pledge
      • American: The Bill Hicks Story
      • Donnie Brasco
      • Bugsy
      • Milk
      • Reservoir Dogs
      • Glengarry Glen Ross
      • V for Vendetta
      • Trumbo
      • Two in the Wave
      • South of the Border
      • Into the Abyss
      • God Bless America
  • Before the Deluge
    • The Bicycle Thief
    • Judgment at Nuremberg
    • Five Minutes to Live
    • The Manchurian Candidate
    • Hud
    • Pressure Point
    • Blow Up
    • Requiem for a Heavyweight
    • Hurry Sundown
  • Human Flood
    • Jean-Luc Godard >
      • Breathless
      • Masculine Feminine
      • Film Socialisme
    • Brian De Palma >
      • Sisters
      • The Fury
    • Stanley Kubrick >
      • Lolita
      • 2001: A Space Odyssey
      • A Clockwork Orange
      • The Shining
      • Full Metal Jacket
    • Francis Coppola >
      • The Conversation
      • Apocalypse Now
    • Woody Allen >
      • Take the Money and Run
      • Bananas
      • Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Sex But were Afraid to Ask
      • Sleeper
      • Love and Death
      • Annie Hall
      • Interiors
      • Manhattan
      • Stardust Memories
      • Zelig
      • Broadway Danny Rose
      • The Purple Rose of Cairo
      • Hannah and Her Sisters
      • Radio Days
    • Robert Altman >
      • M*A*S*H
      • Brewster McCloud
      • 3 Women
      • Nashville
      • The Gingerbread Man
      • Ready to Wear
      • Gosford Park
      • The Player
    • Luis Bunuel >
      • The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie
    • Roman Polanski >
      • Cul-de-Sac
      • Rosemary's Baby
      • MacBeth
      • The Tenant
    • Martin Scorsese >
      • Boxcar Bertha
    • Steven Spielberg >
      • Duel
    • Oliver Stone >
      • Talk Radio
    • Orson Welles >
      • F For Fake
    • Akira Kurosawa >
      • DODES'KA-DEN
    • Max Ophuls
    • John Ford >
      • The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance
    • John Huston
    • Frank Capra
    • Billy Wilder
    • Roger Corman
    • Bernardo Bertolucci
    • Elia Kazan
    • William Wyler
    • Spike Lee
    • Francois Truffaut >
      • 400 Blows
      • Jules and Jim
      • Bed and Board
    • Jean Renoir
    • Federico Fellini
    • Charlie Chaplin
    • John Cassavetes
    • Agnes Vargas
    • Alain Resnais
    • Eric Rohmer >
      • Claire's Knee
    • Ida Lupino
    • Leni Riefenstahl
    • Penny Marshall
    • Costa-Gavras >
      • The Confession
      • Missing
    • Alfred Hitchcock >
      • Spellbound
      • Shadow of a Doubt
      • The Birds
      • I Confess
      • Dial M for Murder
      • Rear Window
      • To Catch a Thief
      • The Wrong Man
      • Suspicion
      • Saboteur
      • Lifeboat
      • Notorious
      • Rope
      • North by Northwest
      • Psycho
      • The Man Who Knew Too Much (1934)
  • No Particular Place to Go
  • The Pits
    • The Big Chill
    • W. C. Fields and Me
    • Zabriskie Point
    • Eat The Document
    • Hitler: The Last Ten Days
    • A Boy and His Dog
    • A Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich
    • The Executioner's Song
    • The Visitors
    • Paul McCartney Really is Dead
    • Going Places
    • Pi
    • Erik the Viking
    • Sometimes They Come Back
    • Thinner
    • Beyond the Valley of the Dolls
    • A Bullet for Pretty Boy
  • Links