31 days of horror Year 3 day 31 fourth film

Last house on the left
1972
MGM collector's edition DVD

After hearing about this film for many many years,I finally picked it up when the first DVD came out. This was the first non-documentary,non-porn film from Wes Craven and Sean Cunningham. There are many many stories about how this film shocked the hell out of audiences back during it's original run. Supposedly this DVD has the most complete version of the film. It seems that lots of movie theaters would edit out scenes. Sadly there is a few scenes that are still missing,and some that have been found but have no sound.

Mari and her friend are on their way to see a concert in the city. They want to pick up some pot before they goto the show. So they ask this young guy they see standing outside a house if he knows were to get any. Well he tells them he has some inside. So they follow him inside and get attacked by the guys father and friends.

The next morning both girls are loaded up into the trunk of a car and Krug and his gang head out. The gang are all escaped convicts. So they are trying to make their way outta the state. Well the car breaks down,and none of them can fix it. So they take the girls and head off into the nearby woods.Mari happens to see that they aren't too far from her home.

Once they get deep in the woods Krug and company start to sadistically torture both girls. After some time they gut Mari's friend. Then Krug brutally rapes Mari and then carves his name into her chest. She wanders off into a nearby lake. So Krug shoots her in the head.

The gang goes and washes up at the lake and then changes into clean clothes. They goto the nearest house and pretend to be a group of salesmen who have broken down. Well the house just so happens to be Mari's home. Earlier on,while trying to escape Mari had given a necklace to Krug's son. After dinner that night the father spots this necklace and him and his wife head out into the woods. They find Mari's dead body on the shore of the lake. So they go back home. The dad starts setting various booby traps. What is it with Wes Craven films and booby traps? Then over the rest of the film the mom and dad kill the gang in some very vicious ways.

Now this DVD is packed with extras.We get a commentary with Fred Lincoln,Marc Sheffler and the late David Hess. The documentary Celluloid crime of the century,a few deleted scenes. And then the footage I mentioned before that has no sound. I keep hearing people,mostly the generation after me,talking about how they don't like the film. And how it is so bad and not worth a shit. Well I gotta say the first time I saw it I was shocked. The various torture and rape scenes are extremely brutal for the time they were shot. Plus the film has this look to it that makes it look more like you are watching some one's twisted home movies. Last House on the Left gets a B+.