Don't Bother Stopping by "The Last House on the Left"
Tiana Lawson
Issue date: 4/14/09 Section: Entertainment
In 1972 Wes Craven, looking to make his mark on the horror movie genre, wrote and directed The Last House on the Left. Surprisingly, it went on to propel Craven to his status as a father of horror, and scared and sickened its viewers, with its tagline, "To avoid fainting, keep repeating… it's only a movie, it's only a movie."
However, after viewing its 2009 counterpart it should be changed to, "To avoid falling asleep, keep repeating… I paid $9.50 to see this movie, I paid $9.50 to see this movie."
Admittedly, there were some good things to come out of it, including the performance of Sara Paxton, where she not only does her own stunts, but does them convincingly and helps move her out of the "Disney Movie" status she is known for.
As someone who doesn't particularly care for horror movies, because I don't like to be scared, this movie failed miserably by not scaring me at all. Sure, there were times where I had to turn my head to avoid some gory scenes, but even those were few and far between.
"Last House" follows the day of Mari Collingwood (Paxton), a teenaged girl on vacation with her parents (Tony Goldwyn and Monica Potter). Eager to get away from them, Mari takes a trip into town where she meets up with her friend Paige (Martha MacIsaac). After coming across a Justin (Spencer Treat Clark), an obvious out of towner, who offers them weed in exchange for cigarettes, the girls meet his dysfunctional family. His dad Krug, (Garrett Dillahunt an escaped killer, Francis (Aaron Paul), his idiot uncle and Sadie (Riki Lindhome), Francis' bi-curious girlfriend, who for some reason had her bare breasts hanging out for most of the movie. From there, it leads to the girls being tortured, abused, and left for dead. When the criminals show up at the Collingwood home looking for shelter, it's not long before the parents find out what happened and when they do, no one is safe.
Sounds like a good plot, right? That is until you realize that the movie's best scenes are seen in the movie trailer and that the actual killing doesn't begin until about an hour in. What were they thinking? This movie was meant to be viewed by members of Gen. Y, like myself who pride themselves on finding humor in old school horror movies and only being scared by each installment of the SAW series. Therefore, shouldn't they have known that in order to scare us, the violence had to be prevalent from the very beginning?
Sure, there is the brutal murder of two cops during the first five minutes of the movie, but that's it on the violence front for about another half hour. In between there, it's filled with Mari's mysteriously dead brother and an impromptu makeover given to Jake, by the girls. During the rape and torture of Mari and Paige, I was more disgusted than scared and by the time it came for the killers to be killed, I felt vengeance rather than fear.
Simply put, there is a difference between being frightened and sickened, of which I experienced more of the latter. The scenes go on far too long which does nothing except waste time before blood is shed. This unfortunately puts it into a category with House of Wax (2005) and Psycho (1998) as an unnecessary horror movie remake.
However, after viewing its 2009 counterpart it should be changed to, "To avoid falling asleep, keep repeating… I paid $9.50 to see this movie, I paid $9.50 to see this movie."
Admittedly, there were some good things to come out of it, including the performance of Sara Paxton, where she not only does her own stunts, but does them convincingly and helps move her out of the "Disney Movie" status she is known for.
As someone who doesn't particularly care for horror movies, because I don't like to be scared, this movie failed miserably by not scaring me at all. Sure, there were times where I had to turn my head to avoid some gory scenes, but even those were few and far between.
"Last House" follows the day of Mari Collingwood (Paxton), a teenaged girl on vacation with her parents (Tony Goldwyn and Monica Potter). Eager to get away from them, Mari takes a trip into town where she meets up with her friend Paige (Martha MacIsaac). After coming across a Justin (Spencer Treat Clark), an obvious out of towner, who offers them weed in exchange for cigarettes, the girls meet his dysfunctional family. His dad Krug, (Garrett Dillahunt an escaped killer, Francis (Aaron Paul), his idiot uncle and Sadie (Riki Lindhome), Francis' bi-curious girlfriend, who for some reason had her bare breasts hanging out for most of the movie. From there, it leads to the girls being tortured, abused, and left for dead. When the criminals show up at the Collingwood home looking for shelter, it's not long before the parents find out what happened and when they do, no one is safe.
Sounds like a good plot, right? That is until you realize that the movie's best scenes are seen in the movie trailer and that the actual killing doesn't begin until about an hour in. What were they thinking? This movie was meant to be viewed by members of Gen. Y, like myself who pride themselves on finding humor in old school horror movies and only being scared by each installment of the SAW series. Therefore, shouldn't they have known that in order to scare us, the violence had to be prevalent from the very beginning?
Sure, there is the brutal murder of two cops during the first five minutes of the movie, but that's it on the violence front for about another half hour. In between there, it's filled with Mari's mysteriously dead brother and an impromptu makeover given to Jake, by the girls. During the rape and torture of Mari and Paige, I was more disgusted than scared and by the time it came for the killers to be killed, I felt vengeance rather than fear.
Simply put, there is a difference between being frightened and sickened, of which I experienced more of the latter. The scenes go on far too long which does nothing except waste time before blood is shed. This unfortunately puts it into a category with House of Wax (2005) and Psycho (1998) as an unnecessary horror movie remake.
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