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| Editorial Reviews: | |  |  | | Future Nightmare creator and Scream weaver Wes Craven's film debut is a primitive little production that rises above its cut-rate production values and hazy, grainy patina via its grimly affecting portrait of human evil infiltrating a middle-class household. The story is adapted from Ingmar Bergman's The Virgin Spring, but the film has more in common with Sam Peckinpah's Straw Dogs as it charts the descent of a harmless married couple into methodical killers. A quartet of criminals--a distorted version of the nuclear family--kidnaps a pair of teenage girls and proceeds to ravage, rape, torture, and finally brutally murder them in the woods, unwittingly within walking distance of their rural home. The killers take refuge in the girls' own home, but when the parents discover just who they are and what they've done, they plot violent retribution. Along with George Romero's Night of the Living Dead and Tobe Hooper's Texas Chainsaw Massacre, Craven helped redefine American horror with this debut--all three movies portray modern society crumbling into madness and horror. But, unlike his fellow directors, Craven gives his film an uncomfortable verisimilitude, setting it squarely in the heartland of modern America. While at times it's awkward and inconsistent, with distracting comic interludes, his handling of the brutal horror scenes is unsettling, and the death of the daughter is an unexpectedly quiet and lyrical moment. --Sean Axmaker | |
| Custom Reviews: | |
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| | First of all, I am a huge fan of distubing, thriller type movies. Unfortunately, this movie (I use the term loosely) was a terrible waste of my time. The plot is pretty good (but very implausible), but the story jumps around to the point of being ridiculous. Scary, dramatic Absolutely not--this movie is pure garbage and what a disappointment. Luckily, Wes has gotten better over time.
| | | This is a snoozer. Wes doesn't have many good movies, and this is easily one of his worst. It was so boring and monotonous and it wasn't scary, disturbing, or suspenseful. I laughed at it. There was nothing scary at all about this...! I kept waiting for it to get scary, and it never did. It was boring and monotonous. It just plain [stinks]! See something else.
| | The last movie you should ever let your kids see! | |
| | Whoa! Whoa! Whoa! O.K. what kind of movie is this? It does not get any more disturbing then this movie, i just watched it last night. This movie is SICK!!! What really makes it bad is how realistic it is, those poor girls. These convicts are just the scum of the earth and in my opinion they got of easy at the end of the film. Great performances all the way around, their is not a weak performance in the movie. Krug, the convict leader is especially evil and vicious. His girl friend is also convincing as a disgusting, heartless, killer. The two teenaged girls also play their parts extreemly well, especially the daughter of the older couple. This movie gave me bad dreams and was way more unsetteling than Nightmare on Elm Street or Friday the 13th because the monsters in this movie were just human beings. These girls were so naive and foolish, (Message to everyone reading, when buying drugs from strangers never, NEVER, follow them anywhere to get it. Wait for them to come back with the drugs, stay in a public place. If anyone does try to convince you to go with them someplace to buy drugs, they are trying to set you up to be robbed or worse, immediatly break of communication with them and get away! Believe me I know about these things.) they were in over their heads, they were just kids even though they might have looked like women. The rape and pyschological torture scenes were beyond the beyond, espeically the one in the woods where the girls were made to have sex with each other. Both girls were brave in different ways, and the daughter of the older couple was even able to make these cold blooded, remorseless convicts feel guilty about what they had done, she shamed them with her purity in comparison to their filth. That scene is the best scene in the movie. The convicts get their just deserts I suppose but it does not make up for what the parents lost. The bumbling cops were the perfect compliament, tottaly inept, their foolish mishandling of the situation cost the girls their lives. I read a lot of reviews where people complained about these scense, claiming that they did not understand why these "comic" scenes were in the movie, Craven should not have tried to be "funny". Instead he should have concentrated more on the terror. Either these people are retarded or have no sense of irony. The scenes with the cops were in no way intended to be funny at all, they were meant to illustrate how stupid the police were and how badly they handled the situation. The happy, slapstick music and the banter between the Sherieff and the Deputy was meant to demonstrate the juvinille, country bumpkin, absurd mindstate of the police. They did not take the situation serioulsy and that is why the scenes with them are not serious. It is meant as a contrast to the horror of what is happening to the teenaged girl in the woods. While the cops are goofing of and teasing each other innocent lives are being lost. I also liked the happy music Craven used, it contrasted perfectly with the dead serious situation of the abuse of the girls in the woods and made it even more disturbing. The music hightened the tension of the film and made the viewer really feel the horror of the situation even more. This movie is BAD, BAD, BAD, BAD, BAD!!!! But not bad as in low quality, bad as in EVIL!!! The music during the credits was really distrubing. This movie seems like it was from hell or something, I dont know, this movie got to me and that is hard to do. I have seen "I Spit On Your Grave" but that was just basically well acted rape porn with a revenge twist. I dont know what this movie is, I do not know how to label or define it, it defies classification. It is not horror, drama, action, it is just EVIL. Some reviwers gave this movie bad reviews because they said it was badly acted and directed, to me that sounds like a pyschological defense mechanism to avoid the emotional truama this movie induces on the viwer. I can understand why someone would hate this move, espically women, and feel that it never should have been made. But I do not think anyone that is being honest with themselves can flippanlty disregard it and claim that it had no impact on them, that it was "funny". Only really, really, sick people would think this movie was funny. This movie is CRAZY! You cannot make movies like this anymore in America, only in the 1970s where directors truly free to really push the limits. This is by far Craven's best film, better than Scream or anything else he has ever made. This movie has an R rating, they must have bribed someone to get that. This movie was edited, I know their are scenes of violence and rape that were cut, especially the scene in the woods. Does anyone know if their is an unrated version of this film?
| | The last movie you should ever let your kids see! | |
| | Whoa! Whoa! Whoa! O.K. what kind of movie is this? It does not get any more disturbing then this movie, i just watched it last night. This movie is SICK!!! What really makes it bad is how realistic it is, those poor girls. These convicts are just the scum of the earth and in my opinion they got of easy at the end of the film. Great performances all the way around, their is not a weak performance in the movie. Krug, the convict leader is especially evil and vicious. His girl friend is also convincing as a disgusting, heartless, killer. The two teenaged girls also play their parts extreemly well, especially the daughter of the older couple. This movie gave me bad dreams and was way more unsetteling than Nightmare on Elm Street or Friday the 13th because the monsters in this movie were just human beings. These girls were so naive and foolish, (Message to everyone reading, when buying drugs from strangers never, NEVER, follow them anywhere to get it. Wait for them to come back with the drugs, stay in a public place. If anyone does try to convince you to go with them someplace to buy drugs, they are trying to set you up to be robbed or worse, immediatly break of communication with them and get away! Believe me I know about these things.) they were in over their heads, they were just kids even though they might have looked like women. The rape and pyschological torture scenes were beyond the beyond, espeically the one in the woods where the girls were made to have sex with each other. Both girls were brave in different ways, and the daughter of the older couple was even able to make these cold blooded, remorseless convicts feel guilty about what they had done, she shamed them with her purity in comparison to their filth. That scene is the best scene in the movie. The convicts get their just deserts I suppose but it does not make up for what the parents lost. The bumbling cops were the perfect compliament, tottaly inept, their foolish mishandling of the situation cost the girls their lives. I read a lot of reviews where people complained about these scense, claiming that they did not understand why these "comic" scenes were in the movie, Craven should not have tried to be "funny". Instead he should have concentrated more on the terror. Either these people are retarded or have no sense of irony. The scenes with the cops were in no way intended to be funny at all, they were meant to illustrate how stupid the police were and how badly they handled the situation. The happy, slapstick music and the banter between the Sherieff and the Deputy was meant to demonstrate the juvinille, country bumpkin, absurd mindstate of the police. They did not take the situation serioulsy and that is why the scenes with them are not serious. It is meant as a contrast to the horror of what is happening to the teenaged girl in the woods. While the cops are goofing of and teasing each other innocent lives are being lost. I also liked the happy music Craven used, it contrasted perfectly with the dead serious situation of the abuse of the girls in the woods and made it even more disturbing. The music hightened the tension of the film and made the viewer really feel the horror of the situation even more. This movie is BAD, BAD, BAD, BAD, BAD!!!! But not bad as in low quality, bad as in EVIL!!! The music during the credits was really distrubing. This movie seems like it was from hell or something, I dont know, this movie got to me and that is hard to do. I have seen "I Spit On Your Grave" but that was just basically well acted rape porn with a revenge twist. I dont know what this movie is, I do not know how to label or define it, it defies classification. It is not horror, drama, action, it is just EVIL. Some reviwers gave this movie bad reviews because they said it was badly acted and directed, to me that sounds like a pyschological defense mechanism to avoid the emotional truama this movie induces on the viwer. I can understand why someone would hate this move, espically women, and feel that it never should have been made. But I do not think anyone that is being honest with themselves can flippanlty disregard it and claim that it had no impact on them, that it was "funny". Only really, really, sick people would think this movie was funny. This movie is CRAZY! You cannot make movies like this anymore in America, only in the 1970s where directors truly free to really push the limits. This is by far Craven's best film, better than Scream or anything else he has ever made. This movie has an R rating, they must have bribed someone to get that. This movie was edited, I know their are scenes of violence and rape that were cut, especially the scene in the woods. Does anyone know if their is an unrated version of this film?
| | Realism Arrives In Horror Movies. | |
| | | This 1972 production is one of the first films to present violence in the context of American society, and not in castles or anything. Wes Craven, who is recognized with his 'Scream' triology by masses, does a fine job in his debut. The movie's plot is as follows: A bunch of guys and a girl, think that they need more girls to their group for the sake of equalizing the number of girls and guys in the group, and of course having a little fun. We see two girls, who're to see a concert in a bad neighborhood. They want to have some 'grass', and ask someone in the street to have 'a cut'. He calls them to their house, and viola! They're trapped. It will be the next couple of violent hours where we see the girls being brutally harrassed, raped, and killed out in the woods. What makes the story more interesting is that it all happens in the walking distance of Mari's - one of the killed girls - house. The group changes clothes and knock on the family's door. In fact, they will be welcomed very well. However, things will change as the parents discover what they've done. The acting is not perfect; I must admit that. The soundtrack isn't either. In a lot of the violent moments, the music director chooses to put country folk music, which just doesn't make any sense. Had they put some real scary music, the effect would have been much more intensifying. However, 'Last House on the Left' is overall a successful production, which should be watched to see where we were before and where we are now in scary movies. In fact, I like the old movies.
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