HEAVY SPOILERS AHEAD! YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED!
Released: March 2009
Director: Dennis Iliadis
Run Time: 110 Minutes
Rated R
Distributor: Universal Pictures
Genre: Horror/Thriller
Cast:
Garret Dillahunt: Krug
Monica Potter: Emma
Tony Goldwyn: John
Sara Paxton: Mari
Riki Lindhome: Sadi
Aaron Paul: Francis
Spencer Treat Clark: Justin
I’ve gone on ad nauseum about remakes and their value to audiences and the film industry. A great many remakes often fail to recapture what made the original film so impactful. This happens quite a bit with horror movies. More often than not, the film-makers take a drastically different approach, often trading atmosphere and tension for gore and shock value. It’s not to say that I don’t appreciate some of them, as some are pretty decent, but more often than not, there’s a great deal that’s lost in translation. When it comes to the late Wes Craven and HIS movies, some of the remakes are better than the original film: The Hills Have Eyes is a perfect example. I enjoyed the 1976 movie a great deal, but the remake packs more of a visceral punch. The other remake that I feel outdid the original film was The Last House on The Left.
The story of The Last House of the Left follows two girls, Mari and Paige, who end up being kidnapped by a group of vile criminals led by the vicious Krug. The girls are brutally assaulted and left for dead, while Krug, Francis, Krug’s son Justin, and Sadi find themselves at the vacation home of John and Emma, Mari’s parents, who let them stay the night not realizing that Krug and company did something terrible to their daughter. When they find out, Emma and John unleash hell on their unsuspecting guests. This kind of story has been told multiple times in different ways since Ingrid Bergman’s The Virgin Spring, the film that inspired Wes Craven’s 1972 shocker. It’s a brutal and unrelenting tale of revenge. The difference here is that the original House was also a reaction to the Vietnam War. It was a very political and social condemnation of a war that never needed to happen and cost many lives. This 2009 version doesn’t really have a lot to say politically, but socially it still maintains that veneer of not hanging around the wrong crowd and trusting the wrong people.
There a number of changes to the story that I feel DO elevate this film above the original. First of all, the tone is far more consistent than the 1972 movie. Don’t get me wrong, the original film was intense in its own way, but it was definitely a product of its time, especially when it came to the music. The tone was all over the place. It jumped from being goofy at times to outright horrifying at others. This movie takes a more consistent approach in building up tension. I want to get the assault out of the way. The assault on Mari and Paige is nothing short of harrowing brutality. Unlike the original film, the assault doesn’t last very long, but it’s brutal. At the end of the assault in the original film, both girls end up dead. Here, Mari manages to survive being shot in the back and makes her way home where her parents find her. Having one of the victims actually survive brings a different level of tension and makes for a more emotional confrontation with Krug. In the original film, the parents are simply out for revenge, while in this film, they’re trying to save their daughter’s life, and that’s far more compelling. Also, having Justin subtly alert the parents to what happened to their daughter is a pretty smart move as it shows that children aren’t necessarily their parents.
The acting in this movie is really good and a huge step up from the original film. First of all, you’ve got Garett Dillahunt as Krug, Aaron Paul as Francis, and Riki Lindhome as Sadi, our group of scumbags. The late David Hess was incredible as Krug, but Dillahunt brings a whole new kind of menace to the character. These characters are pure evil, and the actors do a phenomenal job of making the audience wanting them to die horribly. Tony Goldwyn and Monica Potter are amazing as Mari’s parents. Tony’s always been a fantastic, yet underrated actor. The opening moments show a much lighter side to the family that allows the audience to connect. When things go wrong and the parents find out what happened, it’s intense. Sara Paxton is pretty good as Mari. Her character gets put through the wringer, and Sara was all in on that. In recent interviews on the Arrow Blu-Ray, Sara had to convince Dillahunt to be even rougher with her, even though he wasn’t comfortable with it. The result is a far more harrowing sequence.
Now, for a movie like this, people want the revenge to come swiftly and violently. Director Dennis Iliadis brings the violence and then some. One of the biggest complaints about the original film when it was released back in 1972 was not necessarily the rape sequence, but the revenge part of the film. It’s always bugged me why people were more concerned about the degree of violence unleashed on evil-doers than the horrific acts that were inflicted on innocent victims. What I feel makes this movie different, and subsequently better than the first film, is that the violence is not just about revenge. Now that Mari managed to survive, they need to protect their little girl, which means bringing the fucking pain. The most brutal death of the film has to be Aaron Paul’s Francis. This particular kill was SAVAGE. But each subsequent kill was satisfying in its own way. Even the way that Krug meets his end was satisfying, if a bit comical. The pacing of the movie was pretty quick for a film that runs 110 minutes.
When all is said and done, I don’t think the 2009 version of The Last House on the Left has the same impact that Craven’s original film did. That movie came out during a time of major division and social upheaval. People were not ready for it, yet the 70s gave us The Exorcist, The Hills Have Eyes, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, and Alien. All of which were pretty brutal for their time. The tagline for the original film was: To avoid fainting, keep repeating “it’s only a movie. It’s only a movie. It’s only a movie.” It was a movie that upset a lot of people, which is what Wes Craven had intended. The 2009 movie has been viewed by some as to be another “torture-porn” kind of movie. It really isn’t. Is it a horror movie or a dark thriller? Yes. It definitely walks that line, but arguments could be made for whatever genre this movie falls under. The original film has its followers and fans, and I’m one of them, but I feel that the 2009 remake does it better in nearly every way.