There Goes the Neighborhood

Director: Wes Craven

Starring: David Hess, Sandra Cassal, Lucy Grantham

To promote its theatrical release, posters for Wes Craven's Last House On The Left warned viewers: "To avoid fainting, keep repeating, 'It's only a movie.'" Clever hype notwithstanding, Craven's ("Scream", "Nightmare On Elm Street") infamous 1972 directorial debut still remains one of the most profoundly disturbing - if at times poorly executed - exploitation flicks of a generation.

At its core, Last House on the Left is an exercise in violence. However, rather than depicting violence for the sake of violence, Craven's film is an exploration of violence begetting violence. The work documents the sadistic murders of two teenage girls - Mari Collingwood and her friend Phyllis - by a fugitive gang of inbred criminals (led by Italian horror favorite David Hess in the film's only noteworthy performance), and one family's bloody act of revenge. Predictably, the images that pervade Craven's film, many of which depict the two girls suffering a variety of torture and humiliations, are unflinchingly brutal and profoundly unnerving. Particularly disturbing is the scene where Mari is killed firing-squad style while standing in the middle of a creek. The camera's shows the young girl in shock and frozen with fear - resembling, more than anything, a deer facing its hunter. Though none of these scenes are exceptionally gory by today's standards, they are unsettling nonetheless because of their stark realism. The villains of Craven's film aren't undead or supernatural; instead, they are genuine, mortal humans crossing the border into inhumanity.

Produced in the early 1970s, Last House on the Left is obviously a product of its time: when a once idealistic younger generation became burnt out, distrusting and fearful of the future following Vietnam and the Kennedy and King assassinations. As such, Craven emphasizes a society divided, above all by class. When Hess and his gang invade the suburbs, he frequently broods over what he perceives to be upper-class arrogance exuded by the families who live there. The generation gap is also omnipresent throughout the film, such as when Mari's father criticizes his daughter for not wearing a bra. Later, after learning that a rock band Mari wishes to see rips apart live chickens on stage, he asks "Aren't you supposed to be the love generation?" Craven's rebuttal is obvious: This clearly is no longer the "Summer of Love."

Last House on the Left frequently juxtaposes images of extreme violence and torture against comedic scenes, and does so with mixed results. For example, shots of the girls being lured into the killer's hideout are interspersed with blithe images of Mari's parents preparing her birthday cake and sipping wine while exchanging light banter. Though the parents' performances are stiff (The script's poor dialogue doesn't help.), Craven's unique direction manages to still effectively drive home the point that the girls are utterly isolated from anyone who regards them with good will.

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