Last House on the Left (2009)

Last House on the Left, by Wes Craven, is my favourite horror movie of all time, and any reader of my stuff knows that well. We are still in the midst of a decade-long trend of remaking classic horror movies, and in the grand scheme of things, I am sort of surprised right now that Last House got one before Carrie, Poltergeist or even The Exorcist (these were all terrible and should not have been attempted), due to its underground nature and mixed reception in modern day. But the centuries-old Virgin Spring story that Last House, among several other movies, is based upon still holds water, perhaps now more than ever. When I considered it in contrast to Denis Iliadis' 2009 remake, the original Last House was not what one would imagine when thinking of a horror movie: plenty of comic relief and dark humour, almost no on-screen gore and ungratuitous narrative. The new one takes on a far more classical 'horror' feel from the start, with dark misty visuals, more menacing characters and an obviously ominous set up.

The original Last House went like this: Mari, the daughter of a doctor, lives in the woods of Connecticut, and is celebrating her 17th birthday by heading into the city with her streetwise friend Phyllis, who Mari's mother dislikes and distrusts. On their way to a concert, they cross paths with a gang of escaped convicts while in pursuit of ganja, and get kidnapped, sexually abused and ultimately murdered in the woods near Mari's home. When the gang's car won't start, they seek shelter at the nearest house - and its occupants soon discover what has happened to their daughter, and seek to right some wrongs. This action was punctuated with upbeat folk music and a duo of dumb cops trying to stop the bad guys.

The remake opens with a play on the original loveable cops with two detestable assholes, who are escorting dangerous convict Krug to his new prison. His accessories Francis (Aaron Paul), girlfriend Sadie and son Justin run the cop car off the road and spring Krug. Then we meet the Collingwoods: teenage daughter Mari (Sara Paxton) is a determined competitive swimmer, under much encouragement from her mother, while Doc Collingwood (Tony Goldwyn) is a hands-on ER doctor/surgeon. They lost their son a year previously - Mari treasures a gold pendant that he had engraved for her, and Momma Collingwood frets over her one remaining child with appropriate neurosis.

They come to stay at their summer house in the woods, and Mari looks up old friend Paige, and hooks up with her at her job in a convenience store. The girls chat behind the counter and Mari's newfound aversion to marijuana is made evident. A shady young hoodlum overhears their conversation, and he invites them back to his motel room to buy some green. The girls get friendly with the boy, Justin, and end up partying awhile in the room, when Krug, Sadie and Francis come home, and decide that the girls' inate involvement in their crime spree means that they cannot leave.

This time around, Mari is the smart one, and in the course of her kidnapping, pulls off several intuitive tricks in escape attempts. Her ultimate survival just happens to hinge on her immense swimming ability - but let's face it, they wouldn't have bothered giving us this insight into her personal life if it weren't going to pay off later. This time around, Doc Collingwood's profession serves more purpose than to justify the family's large house. When his near-dead daughter ends up on the doorstep, he uses all his top ER tricks to save her life, all while touchingly talking to her like a loving father.

The gang are very modern, in that the girlfriend gets her tits out a lot, the sidekick is a small white thug, and the leader is absolutely unoriginal. In both looks and character, this Krug is unremarkable and although his team dynamic is largely unexplored, he is a psychological manipulator and a physical abuser. His control of his son is not reliant on heroin, but on emotion, and in amongst his physical assault of the girls, he rubs salt into the wounds with his psychological abuse. His written character is pretty good, but on screen it is not too memorable. David Hess as Krug is one of the most charismatic movie characters ever, and it's a tough act to follow.

The abuse that the girls suffer in the woods is far more in-your-face than in it was in the original, to a certain effect. The rape of Mari certainly turned my stomach, but I maintain that in a good narrative, such cruelties are necessary for us as an audience to feel the way the author intends us to about certain characters - consider Joffrey Baratheon in Game of Thrones to get my point. But a comparison can be drawn here: the 1972 version made my heart ache with its depiction of sexual assault, where the 2009 version made me feel sick. This evidences the primary difference between the two Last Houses: 1972 was a sorrowfully poetic movie, and the 2009 movie was a horror exploitation.