Last House

I typically don’t like horror films. And I’m not exactly ready to tell you that I’m a fan of this remake of the Wes Craven classic, but I was, in a way, kind of blown away by it. 

Maybe that’s because I read the reviews in advance, almost every one of which was incredibly negative. Critics HATED this film, save for a few. So, yeah, my expectations were low. But from the first few frames it was obvious that Last House On the Left was the work of a real filmmaker who knows his shit. It’s all there, in the first seconds, the hallmarks of a film historian-turned-director, immediately making this a more promising work than any of the other recent classic horror remakes.

For starters, yes, this is a horror film. But not in a jump out of your seat sort of way. It’s closer, in fact, to Michael Haenke’s Funny Games than the original Craven film or, well, most American horror films. More than straight horror, this is a horrifying film. The story is one that could - and maybe has - actually happened. It’s extreme and ugly and bloody. Nice girls get raped and shot and tossed around. A family gets attacked by murderers. A dad finds his near dead daughter on his porch, examines her and realizes that she was just raped and nearly killed. All of this happens in one of the most grizzly, in-your-face manners mainstream American screens have maybe ever seen. It’s the real deal.

Does that mean that Last House is a good film? Ehhh, not exactly. It’s a very simple story, really. Girls meet weird kid and smoke pot with him; weird kids fucked up family come back to hotel and find the girls there; fucked up family ends up being a crew of murderers and thus take the girls hostage; they hit the road, where the girls try to escape; girls and tortured and left for dead. You get it. But here’s where things get interested: the murderous crew, left without a car in a rain storm, happen upon the house of one of the girls they just attempted to kill. The nice family takes them in and gives them food and a place to stay.

Then the daughter turns up on the porch. Alive. Uh-oh. What’s gonna happen?! You’ll just have to see for yourself. I’ll say this: for once, you might actually see a horror film where the characters - both good and bad - don’t make stupid, unrealistic decisions left and right. Everything, again, seems kind of real. Sure, the last 10 seconds are a little bit over the top, but everything else works.

And, damn, it’s really fucked up at times. Especially the rape scene - which possibly goes too far. It’s not quite Gaspar Noe exploitative, but it’s damn near in the Straw Dogs ballpark. So be ready for that. And be ready for blood, as every character in the film ends up covered in the stuff. Cuts, stab wounds, you name it.

A modern horror remake that’s actually worth watching? Yep. Believe it.   6.5/10

Written by G. William Locke