In defense of The Last House on the Left
Wes Craven’s first feature film is better than its incredibly vicious exterior lets on.
Legendary horror director Wes Craven, author behind such iconic figures in pop culture like Freddy Krueger and the Scream franchise, burst onto the scene with The Last on the Left. The low-budget exploitation flick, released in 1972, was immediately derided as exploitative, riding on the growing wave of hyper-violence and sadism portrayed in grindhouse horror circles. The film would almost end his burgeoning career, and many of its actors would later express regret for partaking in it. In spite of all of that, I believe it deserves a critical reappraisal, especially when looking at it from the context of its place in 70s media, horror cinema, and Wes’ filmography.
The Last House on the Left is a sort-of-remake of Ingmar Bergman’s 1960 film The Virgin Spring, which itself was inspired by a medieval Swedish ballad. The basic premise of the story is this: the daughter of a well-to-do family is raped and murdered by a group of criminals, as those same criminals go and take refuge in the house of that same family. Although not to the extent of Last House, Bergman’s film was also met with controversy when released. It’s depiction of rape and violence is not implied, as was the case with many films of that era; Bergman places it front and center. Despite its brutality, the film is a nuanced and calculated exploration of guilt, religion, and the ethics of revenge. While Last House on the Left borrows much of the same plot-points, that’s about the extent of their similarities. The exploration of guilt and Christianity vs. Paganism is dropped, as are the subtleties and formalist techniques of The Virgin Spring. Instead what we get is a $87,000 dollar budget film, shot on grainy 16mm film, that finds much more time to voyeur over its explicit torture and humiliation scenes, features second-rate acting at best (except for the marvelous David Hess performance), and ends on a depressing and nihilistic note. And as easy as it is to deride all of that as surface-level shock chasing cinema, to say so is missing the point.
America came into the 70s after having the progress that the 60s promised slowly dissipate. Think of the assassinations of Martin Luther King. Malcolm X. John F. Kennedy. Fred Hampton. The death of counter-culture stars like Jim Morrison and Jimi Hendrix. The eventual entering into Vietnam, and the government’s authoritative response to protests. The growing distrust for authority and law enforcement. All of this bled into the music, media, art, literature, and most importantly the film of the era. In the flourishing grindhouse cinema scene, independent filmmakers began churning out cheap exploitation flicks, and while many would amount to being just another B-movie, some would have genuine staying power. 1968’s Night of the Living Dead and 1974’s Texas Chainsaw Massacre, would come from this scene, and their stark portrayal of violence and gruesomeness, along with their political undertones would help establish the filmmaking ideology that Wes Craven’s debut would adhere to.
When viewed in that lens, the film begins to have more artistic merit. The drawn-out violence becomes a representation of the world and the real and visceral violence that it possesses; to portray that in any other way would be disingenuous. The otherwise happy suburb becomes the setting for savagery, an ode to the Vietnam War and how it crept it’s way into every American’s living room television. The criminals hiding in the house of their victim: the evil that lurks unbeknownst, and their eventual murder by that family: the cruel world driving the innocent to barbarousness. Even the bumbling idiot police officers, who seem to at most offer comic relief, arriving late to the scene of the father holding the bloodied chainsaw become a symbol of the inadequacy of law enforcement to save the good from the swallowing of the wicked.
Wes Craven shook off much of the negative publicity Last House received and followed it up with The Hills Have Eyes, a cult classic, and then eventually the films that would solidify him as a horror legend: Nightmare on Elm Street and Scream. His later films would up the budget and technicalities of the filmmaking but many of the same ideas and motifs remain: a penchant for cruel murders of characters, taking place in well-to-do white America, and incorporating dark humor: all of which was established in his very first film.