Review by CJ

Director:
Dennis Iliadis

Starring:
Sara Paxton, Tony Goldwyn, Monica Potter, Spencer Treat Clark, Garret Dillahunt, Riki Lindhome, Aaron Paul

Running time:
110 minutes

Watch this if you liked:
Eden Lake

Trigger warning:
Graphic rape

Emma (Potter) and John (Goldwyn) Collingwood provide Krug (Dillahunt), his son, brother and girlfriend with medical attention and a place to stay after their car crashes near the Collingwood family’s summer house. What Emma and John don’t know is that Krug is a wanted fugitive whose gang have just brutally assaulted their daughter and murdered her friend. To what lengths will the Collingwood’s go to avenge their daughter?

The Last House on the Left (2009) is a remake of Wes Craven’s directorial debut The Last House on the Left (1972).

I didn’t enjoy The Last House on the Left as it was neither particularly scary or entertaining. There’s no suspense. There’s no surprises. There’s just predictable violence and gore.

In saying that it is not scary, it was definitely disturbing. In particular, there is a scene during which Sara Paxton’s character is graphically raped for several minutes next to her dying friend. It felt overlong and overexposed when it could have been much shorter and far less graphic.

The characters leave you with more questions than answers by the end of the film. What happened to Mari’s brother? He is constantly referred to but we never find out how he died. Why was Krug in custody and going to prison? Once again this is a fairly important catalyst to the film’s events but it is never explained. How did the end scene occur without police intervention? It feels tacked on to the end for shock value but doesn’t add anything to the film except more confusion.

I haven’t seen the original Wes Craven version of The Last House on the Left so cannot make any judgement on whether it was any better or any worse than the original. However, I can say that I didn’t find the remake to be a film that contributes much to the overall horror genre. Definitely one to avoid.

Rating:

“Hey, by the way, y’all did a bang up job on my brother. He is really fucking dead down there!”