The Last House on the Left (1972)

Another of the movies that I had the chance to DVR during one of the free preview movies was the landmark 1972 horror movie The Last House on the Left. I was hoping to do a post for it in the run-up to Halloween, but it wasn't back on TCM just then. I noticed that it's finally got an airing tomorrow at 4:15 AM on Epix Hits, and I think another airing on November 30, so I watched the movie to give you a review here.

Mari Collingwood (Sandra Cassell) is a 17-year-old daughter of Dr. John and Estele Collingwood, who live in one of the more distant Connecticut suburbs of New York. (IMDb says Westport was a filming location, and based on a map on the wall of the police department, it looks consistent with Westport.) It's Mari's birthday, and one of the things she plans to do is celebrate with her friend Phyllis (Lucy Grantham) by going to a concert in New York City. Mari's parents are worried that the concert is in a rough part of the city, this being the era (as I like to describe it) just before Gerald Ford told the city to drop dead.

While Mari and Phyllis are making their way to New York, we hear radio reports about a couple of extremely violent criminals who have escaped prison: Krug Still (David Hess), who has kept his son Junior (Marc Sheffler) hepped up on dope; Krug's girlfriend Sadie (Jeramie Rain); and a fourth named Weasel (Fred Lincoln). They brutally killed a priest and nun among other crimes, and the way that they're constantly mentioned, it's pretty obvious that their paths are going to cross the paths of Mari and Phyllis.

Soon enough those paths cross, in a rather stupid way. Phyllis decides she wants to score some weed, and just starts asking random strangers if they know where she can get it. Of course, one of the criminals is the guy she asks, and he brings them up to their apartment, where they immediately begin to sexually harass the two young women. And it's not as if they can let the two women go on their merry way, because of course the police will be on the case. Cut to the next morning, and the criminals are stuffing their two hostages into the trunk of their car, as the criminals try to get away to who knows where.

Wouldn't you know it, but the place they wind up escaping to and stopping once their car breaks down just happens to be the forest exactly where the Collingwoods live! The criminals take the two women out of the trunk and into the forest, and precede to be even more abusive and taunting to their victims. Both victims try to escape, but eventually get caught. For their efforts, the young women get raped and killed.

In a turn of events that's not really a twist because you can probably see it coming, the criminals, still being stuck in Connecticut with a broken-down car, decide to stop for help at the nearest house, which of course just happens to be the Collingwods' house. Eventually, the couple realize that the guests they have are the psychotic killers, and that said killers murdered their daughter, leading to the movie's climax.

The Last House on the Left is a low-budget movie that has gained a lot of notoriety over the years in no small part because one of the driving forces behind the movie was Wes Craven, who would of course go on to make the Nightmare on Elm Street series. As a low-budget movie, it would be easy to dismiss the movie as the cheap B movie it is.

But at the same time, while it has all the flaws of such low-budget movies, especially bad character decisions and some plot holes, the movie is still surprisingly effective and watchable. The low budget gives it a more intimate feeling, which works to the movie's advantage. There was a remake about a decade ago, but I haven't seen that so can't compare or comment. I believe both versions are available on DVD.