The Last House on the Left by Ryan Haberman

Title/Year : The Last House on the Left (1972)
Director/Birth Country/Year Born: Wes Craven , 1939, United States
Budget: $90,000
Gross: $10,000,000 (Worldwide)
Synopsis:  A band of ruthless criminals on –the-run, kidnap two teenage girls and all hell breaks loose.
Narrative and Visual Keywords: Banned, rape, psycho, murder, revenge, horror.
Characterization/ Dialogue: Regular amounts of normal dialogue, mystery, tension, psychotic dialogue
Camera/lighting/editing technique: Very 1970’s-ish camera styles, lots of quick zooms, tracking shots, mostly close ups and average distances and angles. Mostly outdoor/ natural lighting. Some indoor lighting. This film is in color.
 Political/ Social Commentary : Heavily censored in many countries and banned in the United Kingdom until 2008 as one of the Department of Public Prosecutions list of "video nasties"
Historical Relevance/ Recognition: Has become a cult classic
Notable Collaboration : n/a
Random fact, Etc.: One of the more memorable aspects of the film is the advertising campaign. The film underwent many name changes, including Sex Crime of the Century (from the characters' dialogue in the car ride scene), Krug and Company (a version included on the DVD release), and The Men's Room (simply because one poster showed a men's bathroom). None of these names were particularly successful. Someone then came up with the title The Last House on the Left, along with the infamous "To avoid fainting, keep repeating-it's only a movie..." advertising campaign.

1. 

      This film was considered controversial in many countries and had to be heavily edited, but it had the most trouble in Great Britain, who banned it. They were concerned about the intense scenes of sadism and violence and it was put into a category of low-budget horror films that were made in either Italy or the U.S.  deemed “video nasties”, that were harshly criticized for their violent content.

 .

    2.

     There are some intense scenes of rape and murder of minors in this film and I think that really is what people were uncomfortable with. It’s just something that most people don’t want to see, or think about I guess. I suppose at the time it was something that hadn’t really been shown in cinema either, so it was super shocking for people.

    3. 

    I don’t think it would have been considered to be controversial if it was released today, unless they really made it a lot more graphic. In retrospect, it wasn’t as bad as I thought it was going to be. It even seemed a bit cheesy to me.

   4. 

     I feel like the director should be able to tell a story in whatever way he feels it will work best, to a certain extent. Obviously there are some things that are just universally unacceptable, but most things in cinema are fake anyway. So if Wes Craven decides he wants to use graphic violent material to get his point across, then so be it.  You don’t have to go see the movie if you don’t want to.

   5. 

     Personally, I would not recommend this film to a friend, unless they want to see a messed up movie or something. But I actually didn’t think it was that great.

  

Sources:

Parnell, Tom. The Last House on the Left (1972). Movies at Midnight Blog. Web. October 30, 2010. February 27^th, 2012.

The Last House on the Left (1972), 2012. Web. 27^th February, 2012. http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0055572/

The Last House on the Left, Wikipedia. Wikimedia Foundation, 30 January, 2012. Web. 27 February 2012.

Wes Craven, Wikipedia. Wikimedia Foundation, 30 January, 2012. Web. 27 February 2012.