Product description
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Genre: Drama
Rating: UN
Release Date: 18-AUG-2009
Media Type: DVD
.com
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A hot-button topic in the horror community from the minute it
was announced, the 2009 remake of Wes Craven and Sean
Cunningham’s controversial Last House on the Left will
undoubtedly leave audiences polarized in regard to both its
of the source material and its level of violence. As
with the original film, which drew inspiration from Ingmar
Bergman’s The Virgin Spring (and was itself based on 13th century
Scandinavian legend), director Dennis Illadis’ film traces the
downward spiral of two teenage girls (Sara Paxton and Martha
MacIsaac from Superbad) who fall prey to a quartet of
degenerates. The perpetrators then seek refuge in a nearby
vacation home--which happens to be occupied by Paxton’s parents.
Both versions spare no quarter in detailing the torments
inflicted on the two girls, as well as the ruthlessly efficient
revenge metered out to the killers by the parents; the
difference, however, lies with the intent. Craven and Cunningham
(who serve as executive producers for the remake) sought to shock
Nixon/Vietnam-era audiences by showing the limits to which the
"average" citizen could be pushed by violent acts; Illadis,
however, is simply content to deliver a glossy, overamped
thriller that neither delights in nor condemns the atrocities
committed by its characters. The result is a flat, often tedious
exercise in nihilism buoyed only by its cast, especially Paxton,
Tony Goldwyn and Monica Potter as her parents, and Garrett
Dillahunt (No Country for Old Men) as the malevolent leader of
the depraved foursome. Fans of the original need not bother with
this version; newcomers should seek out Craven’s version, which
has lost none of its power to overwhelm. --Paul Gaita
.com
The legendarily scuzzy 1972 shocker Last House on the Left gets
all dressed up in this slick remake, which retro-fits the
original storyline to an isolated lakeside cabin. This time out,
unsuspecting teen Mari (Sara Paxton) makes the crucial mistake of
going to buy some weed at a rundown motel room with a stranger
(Spencer Treat Clark). It must have sounded like a good idea at
the time. Soon Mari and her pal (Martha MacIsaac) are confronted
by the stranger's diseased posse, and the real trouble begins.
The set-up of the 1972 picture, which director Wes Craven
borrowed from Ingmar Bergman's The Virgin Spring, is a blunt
exercise in brutality followed by revenge, the twist being that
the revenge is as savage as the initial transgression. This
structure remains in the remake, although a few key plot points
are changed, with little improvement. Monica Potter and Tony
Goldwyn play Mari's parents, who at some point will be called
upon to put aside their merlot and their civilized constraints
and get to it; Garret Dillahunt, coming off his strong work in
Deadwood and No Country for Old Men, is far too qualified to be
playing the stock role of the creep-in-chief. There is something
distinctly strange about watching a film that took much of its
original power from its cheapness, an outlaw energy that is
completely lost in this dressed-up, professionally made remake.
Here the scenes of rape and murder are presented not as pulpy
shouts from the subculture but as necessary ingredients in a
respectable machinery, which somehow makes them more dispiriting
and unpleasant to watch. That this film is a technical advance on
the original film on every level--acting, writing,
photography--does not make it a better film. --Robert Horton