Recommendations :: Arrow Video Showcases the Celluloid Crime of the Century with a New Deluxe Edition of Wes Craven's Last House on the Left (1972)

On the eve of her 17th birthday, Mari Collingwood and her bestest friend, Phyllis Stone, set off to the big city to attend a rock concert. Attempting to pick up some marijuana on the way, the pair wind up kidnapped by a group of vicious crooks. Gagged and bound, these young women are bundled into a car trunk and driven deep into the woods, where the gang of sadists subject them to a terrifying ordeal of sexual humiliation, torture and their eventual murder. But this is only half the tale, as this pack of degenerates unwittingly seek shelter in the home of Mari’s parents after the deadly deed is done, who manage to piece together who these people are, what they’ve done to their daughter, and embark on a long night of terrible vengeance.

Originally intended to be something a little more akin to one of Herschell Gordon Lewis' gorenographic epics like 2000 Maniacs (1964) or The Wizard of Gore (1970) -- only with a lot more skin, fledgling filmmakers Wes Craven (writer/director) and Sean S. Cunningham (producer) were commissioned by the Boston-based Hallmark Releasing, who regionally distributed films through their own theater chains -- mostly violent foreign fright flicks, softcore porn, and other drive-in fare -- to make them a new tits ‘n’ ass flick. And the only caveat was to make it as violent and as bloody as possible.

Craven and Cunningham took Hallmark’s money (and most likely pocketed some of it) and proved up to the task, deciding if violence is what they wanted then that is what they'd get; unsanitized and unfiltered for the unflinching eye of the camera, tapping into something on a primordial level where the lines between good and evil, and sadly, what constitutes the difference between actual comedy-relief and insipid buffoonery, blur together like that eye-testing contraption at the DMV, whose viewfinder is totally scummed over with discarded DNA after decades of use and abuse that you really don’t want to look into but you kinda have to.

Now, I admit Last House on the Left (1972) isn't particularly all that good as it burps and hiccups along like the first-time film effort it was; but you cannot deny that when it works -- and I think it works more often than it does not, the film really strikes at a raw nerve. You know, like taking a chisel to your front teeth -- CLANG! -- leaving them shattered, broken, and exposed to the open air to pulse and throb and ache a good long while after young Mari (Peabody) and Phyllis (Grantham) meet their doom and the bad guys get what's coming to them, leaving those who survived to wallow in the aftermath.

Putting the lofty inspirational Bergman and The Virgin Spring (1960) by way of the Tate-Labianca murders to the side, this nasty little exercise in guerrilla and pseudo-documentary filmmaking can be seen or distilled as a metaphor on many levels: as a final, scathing indictment on the failures of the 1960s counterculture movement -- Krug (Hess) and Weasel (Lincoln) are definitely anti-establishment; Junior (Sheffler) dropped out, tuned-in and burnt out; and Sadie (Rain) is "free love" gone horribly, horribly wrong; or, you can read it as bringing the reality of the Vietnam War home (-- the bloody and lingering deaths), and dumping it in the audiences’ lap by way of the Collingwoods; or, the complete and utter destruction of the classic Nuclear Family -- though I think Craven handled that better in The Hills Have Eyes (1977); or, if you're so inclined, you can take it at face value as an unabashed and unrepentant fright flick.

Yeah. Seems as filming progressed, everyone involved from the unknown cast (-- except in Porn circles, that is), to the amateur film crew, realized against all odds they were creating something a little loftier than originally intended; by design or by accident is up for debate, but the film soon changed course as the porn elements were whittled away to concentrate solely on the role-reversal plot and the horrific elements of the film. And though I think Last House on the Left is most effective in the dreadful humiliation scenes, the protracted death of Phyllis -- from her near escape, to the jump-scare in the cemetery, to her eventual disembowelment -- is one of the nastiest successions of cinematic gut-punches committed to film.

Kudos to actress Lucy Grantham for that tough, tough scene. Equal kudos to Sandra Peabody (billed here as Mari Cassell), who walked off the picture due to the “method acting” of her attackers and had to be convinced to come back, pulling off her own harrowing enough and truly disheartening demise. And while we're handing out compliments, I know everyone points out David Hess' performance as the vile Krug as being the ultimate cinematic degenerate, but it's the S.B.D. approach of Fred Lincoln's Weasel that really gives me the creeps. Lincoln was one of those participants who was well versed in the Adult Film Industry of NYC both directing (310), producing (42), and acting (64), and his contributions to the finished film beyond his performance should not be underestimated, providing stunts and staging tips for several gags and murder set-pieces.

Once completed, the MPAA shit a brick and slapped the film with an X-Rating. Hoping for a wider R-rated release, Craven and Cunningham removed ten minutes of footage, and then 20 more minutes, but still no dice. Fed up, as the legend goes, Craven put all the excised footage back in and then, through subterfuge and help from a friend at the MPAA, slapped faux documentation on the finished print, saying it was Rated R and released the film, essentially, unrated. But even in this raw form, upon its initial release under the alternate title Sex Crime of the Century, and later as Krug and Company, the film opened with a dull thud.

But leave it to the Hallmark publicity team to salvage things. Namely Lee Willis, who came up with a catchy, though nonsensical, alternative title and an insidiously infectious advertising campaign, hook, and jingle; and then, soon enough, the film both took off and set off a firestorm of controversy over its content -- the violence, the misogyny, and the perceived misanthropy of the filmmakers, that hasn't settled down even to this day.

In the end, there usually is no gray area with Last House on the Left. You either loved it -- or at least appreciated the movie for what it tried to do (like me), or you hated and condemned it for what it did. You either bought into the use of unfiltered violence to show our darker selves or you were completely screwed in the head and got your rocks off watching the rape and slaughter of two nubile young women. Of course, Hallmark took that controversy and added it to their press-kits and the box-office kept on booming.

Both Craven and Cunningham went on to lucrative careers in the field of legit horror movies but took two different paths to get there (-- though one should note after they both tried and died at more family-friendly genres). And you can see the differences in those styles in their first finished product. Here, Craven was more interested in the motivation and abnormal psychology of what scared us, peeling back the onion, layer by layer, to get down to our more basic, profane, and primal instincts and "feed the gators" -- to cop a phrase from Stephen King. Cunningham, on the other hand, was more of a spookshow huckster, content to just set the audience up, tease them along, and then knock them on their can.

And these differences in approach are personified in the climactic duel between Krug and Dr. Collingwood (Towers). Originally, Craven had wanted them to have a scalpel duel, with Collingwood attacking the major veins and arteries, leaving Krug to die a literal biblical death of a thousand cuts; but his producer thought, nah, saying a chainsaw added more bang and buzz for the buck. And I think if you look at the movie as a whole, the first half, where the deaths are unnervingly all too real, up to the point where the killers actually feel ashamed of what they've done, and no matter how hard they try, can't wash the blood off their hands, is all Craven. But the second half and the Collingwood's revenge, from the cartoony booby-traps, to Mrs. Collingwood (Carr) taking a bite out of crime, to the chainsaw fight is all Cunningham.

Which brings us to Arrow Video’s latest stellar release in a mounting, nay, staggering line of stellar releases: a 3-Disc limited edition Blu-Ray for Last House On the Left, which includes three different restored cuts of the film on the first two discs: an unrated cut, the Krug and Company cut, and the R-rated home video version. And the third disc features the complete original soundtrack for the film composed by star David Hess.

And like all Arrow releases, this set is packed with buku extras, including a brand new audio commentary by podcasters Bill Ackerman and Amanda Reyes along with two vintage commentaries; one with Craven and Cunningham, the other with stars Hess, Sheffler and Lincoln. Featurettes include the mini-docs, Still Standing: The Legacy of The Last House on The Left, Celluloid Crime of the Century, Scoring Last House on the Left , It's Only a Movie: The Making of The Last House on the Left, and Forbidden Footage, which focuses on the film’s most notorious scenes. Also included are new interviews with actor Marc Sheffler and makeup artist Anne Paul, and The Road Leads to Terror -- a brand new featurette revisiting the film's original shooting locations; also included are deleted scenes, outtakes and dailies, trailers, TV and radio spots, and the ubiquitous image galleries.

Bonus features on disc two include The Craven Touch -- a brand new featurette bringing together interviews with a number of Wes Craven’s collaborators, including Sean S. Cunningham, composer Charles Bernstein, producer Peter Locke, cinematographer Mark Irwin, and actress Amanda Wyss; Early Days and 'Night of Vengeance' where filmmaker Roy Frumkes remembers Wes Craven and Last House on the Left; Tales That'll Tear Your Heart Out, an unfinished Wes Craven short; and Krug Conquers England, which charts the theatrical tour of the first ever uncut screening of the film in the UK. The box-set also features lobby card reproductions, the film’s poster, and a limited edition 60-page booklet featuring new writing on the film by author Stephen Thrower, making this release a near definitive look at this seminal horror film. The boxset streets in a couple weeks on July 3rd. So go. Buy this. NOW!

Other Points of Interest:

Newspaper ads for Last House on the Left at the Morgue.  

Buy Last House On the Left at Arrow Video. 

Buy Last House On the Left at Amazon.

Last House on the Left (1972) Lobster Enterprises :: Sean S. Cunningham Films :: The Night Co. :: Hallmark Releasing / P: Sean S. Cunningham / AP: Katherine D’Amato / D: Wes Craven / W: Wes Craven / C: Victor Hurwitz / E: Wes Craven / M: David Hess / S: Sandra Peabody, Lucy Grantham, David Hess, Fred Lincoln, Jeramie Rain, Marc Sheffler, Richard Towers, Cynthia Carr

Sights and Sounds :: April Ghouls Monster Rama :: Day 2 :: Welcome to the Drive-In! Slashers on the Left, Zombies to the Right!

Everyone, meet the gang. The gang, meet everyone.

As we geared up, Sean introduced us to two new victims to our collective head of knuckle -- make that three new victims, Dave, Hilary, and an adorable three-legged pup named Bandit, who were truly hardcore by camping out at the Riverside itself for the two day festival. (Don't know about the rest of you, but April has been blatantly frigid in my neck of the woods and the hills of western Pennsylvania proved no different.) And after a few logistical snags were cleared up (Tim, did you ever find that missing chair?), we broke bread ... well, cookies and cake, hit the snack bar and the Creepy Classics booth, where I picked up the William Castle box set dirt cheap, and then eventually migrated back to our area and settled in for the national anthem (-- which I did not accidentally belch out the opening chorus for this year. Win!) And as the sun went down, and the stars fought against an overcast sky, showtime finally descended up on us...

Before June of 1980, summer camps probably brought to mind some fun in the sun, perhaps an inconvenient tumble in a patch of poison oak, or maybe stealing your first kiss behind the canteen before gathering and singing songs around the campfire. But after June 1980, thanks to the efforts of producer / director Sean S. Cunningham, a rousing chorus of "Kum-Bah-Yah" rapidly degenerated into a brutally quick rendition of "Kum-Bah-Yaaaaarrrrgghhhh!" when a lethally sharp gardening implement was shoved into your spleen, leaving you to gargle on your own juices for that last refrain.

 
Combining some old fashioned hucksterism, a little Agatha Christie, and a big old twitching dose of Mario Bava's Nerve of Death, people tend to forget that Friday the 13th was, at its heart, a genuine murder mystery. Sure, the mystery of who is knocking off the counselors at Camp Crystal Lake takes a back seat to the grisly nature of the murders themselves but we don't know who the killer is until the very end -- and aside from a brief, but very effective cameo, Jason Vorhees doesn't even appear in it. 

Cunningham also landed grue-F/X guru Tom Savini and it was his skills and kills that gave the film its legs and truly launched the franchise. Yeah, Paramount picked the film up after losing out on the rights on another slasher, Prom Night, and has always been embarrassed by this monster it created -- but that didn't stop them from rushing out four sequels in as many years after the initial release to cash in as the franchise quickly went off the rails and got really, really stoopid, really, really quick -- and this is coming from an unabashed fan. 

Tim puts on a production of Agatha Christie's 10 Little Kittens.
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Okay, so, the campground bloodbath of Friday the 13th was based on the New Jersey urban legend of Cropsy, who, as the tale goes, was a camp handyman who fell victim to a disfiguring prank involving an open flame and some kerosene (-- what could possibly go wrong, there, am I right?), who then spent the rest of his life haunting and hunting campers for a little payback. And while Cunningham's film is only tangently related, the Weinstein brothers' The Burning is the full Cropsy Monte plus the added bonus of seeing Jason Alexander and Fisher Stevens' bare asses. 

The bloody and naked-boob'd rock on which Miramax was built, The Burning was an early slasher cash-in that benefits from the rules of such things not being set in bedrock just yet, meaning the victims actually react both proactively and like their heads are still attached once it's been established a mad-killer is running amok -- but only after a tragic encounter with an abandoned canoe. 

 

Again, Savini provided the grue, which helps overcompensate for the worst final girl in Stalk-n-Slash history -- some weasly little schmuck of pervert, who shows all the earmarks of being a serial sexual predator in waiting, groomed, perhaps, to take the killer's place in the sequel. Nice. Fortunately, then, even though The Burning was good enough to warrant a sequel, we never got one. And if nothing else, the film provided a running gag about the fate of those missing canoes for the rest of the rest of the Monster Rama. 

Speaking of the Monster Rama, one of the greatest things about this venue is how during the intervals between films, the audience is treated to a ton of genre-specific trailers on top of the vintage snack bar adverts.

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On Friday, sticking with the slasher theme, we got the trailers for Friday the 13th parts I through VI, Happy Birthday to Me, The Prowler, Silent Scream, My Bloody Valentine, New Year's Evil and many others before switching gears from relentless killing machines to relentless killing AND eating machines... 

Back in 1968 Image Ten Productions, a motley band of weekend filmmakers, cobbled together the no-budget classic of all time -- not to mention one of the greatest horror films ever made, that came to be known as Night of the Living Dead. Soon after, however, the company splintered apart but an amicable agreement was reached on the copyright to their seminal film: director George Romero was allowed to the use the word “Dead” in future films, while scriptwriter John Russo laid claim to the phrase “Living Dead.” And while Romero would go on to write and direct the classic sequel Dawn of the Dead, followed by the not quite as classic, Day of the Dead, around the same time, Russo had hammered out a sequel of his own, titled Return of the Living Dead. But the financing to actually film it always eluded him and, eventually, Russo gave up and sold his share of the copyright, which changed hands several times before falling into scriptwriter Dan O’Bannon’s lap. 

And knowing full well he couldn’t compete with Romero’s films, O’Bannon -- best known for scripting Alien, junked Russo’s script; a direct sequel that seemed content to just rehash its source material; and so Return of the Living Dead went through a massive overhaul and became one of the most hysterical black comedies that still managed to give you the heebie-jeebies as the zombie chants of "Brains" filthfully and furiously entered the pop-culture lexicon. That, and one of the greatest Oh, shit endings to ever end and ending. 

"Tiiiinnnaaaaaa!"

A killer soundtrack, gruesomely outstanding F/X, and Linnea Quigley's magnificent breasts have long been trumpeted (and freeze-framed) as this film's main attractions but I think the majority of the credit for the film's shelf-life belongs to a set of other boobs played by Clu Gulager, James Karen and Don Calfa. 

Return of the Living Dead came out the same year as George Romero's Day of the Dead, our last feature of the evening, and, speaking frankly, the former has aged much better than the latter. Now, coming into this Dusk til Dawn rampage of a movie-thon, we all knew full well that the weather would probably be far less than ideal. The forecast for the evening called for lows in the 30s with a slight chance of rain and or sleet. Luckily, nothing ever fell from the sky but the temperature actually bottomed out at 24 degrees by the time the third feature ended and another round of adverts went up.

Now, I know it's a drive-in, meaning your seat is in your car but our group tends to treat these Super Ramas and Monster Ramas as a tailgate party, meaning lawn chairs and blankets and movies in whatever elements we're dealt. And, being prepared, I had brought several layers of clothing, jackets, hats, gloves and blankets, which I had been adding, layer by layer, with the conclusion of each film (-- and who knew those foil-wrapped cheeseburgers from the snack bar would make such great hand-warmers). But now I was out of stuff to add and, having foolhardily ignored several overtures of hopping in the car to warm up for a bit, watched as frost formed on my friend's shoes as the cold really started to sink in on this damp and dreary (weather-wise) night. 

Thus and so, with the clock tolling almost 3am, most of our group decided to forgo the last film, call it a night, and head back to the Roadhouse to warm up. Myself, I was torn. After all, I had driven 1100 miles for this thing and didn't really feel right leaving it undone. After packing up and jumping in the car, I talked Mike into at least sticking it out through the trailers, which was soooo worth it. (Dead and Buried and The Grim Reaper. Hell yeah!) And then, we stuck through the fantastic opening, pre-credit sequence for Day of the Dead that, alas, the rest of the film just can't sustain. Anyways, here's the trailer:

Video courtesy of Coldheart9009.

And here's a really good review by fellow attendee Scott Ashlin, whose opinion of the film I echo and endorse, making the decision to abandon it for the warming confines of the motel a helluva lot easier than it probably should have been. Yeah, after sitting in the cold for that long, the car's heater was a welcome respite but was already making me really sleepy. And so, we left Dr. Logan, Captain Rhodes, Bub and the rest to fend for themselves and trundled up to the motel, where, once inside, my bladder finally defrosted and I realized I hadn't gone to the toitee all night. The resultant flight to the bathroom I'll leave to your imagination. 

But, before I say goodnight, I'll remind you all that we still have one more night of movies to recollect through and the weatherman promises a 30 degree spike in the temp. Hooray. And lastly, a final shout out to the guy parked next to us who had his headlights covered with pizza boxes because he didn't know how to shut them off. Been there, dude. Next time, push the light switch in like a plunger and you should be gold. G'night, all... 

Stay tuned, Boils and Ghouls, for our final 

report on the April Ghoul's Monster Rama.

(And what happened to those canoes again?)

To Avoid an Aneurysm Keep Repeating ... It's Only a Remake. It's Only a Remake. It's Only a Remake...

You wanna know something? I'm more than a little curious to see Rogue Pictures' remake of Last House on the Left. Anxious even, and it goes way beyond the fact that neither Michael Bay nor Platinum Dunes appear anywhere in the credits. *whew*

Now, I admit the original film isn't particularly all that good as it burps and hiccups along like the first-time effort it is; but you cannot deny that when it works (and I think it works more often than it does not) the film really strikes at a raw nerve -- you know, like taking a chisel to your front teeth -- CLANG! -- leaving them broken and exposed to the open air to throb and ache a good long while after Mari and Phylis meet their doom and the bad guys get what's coming to them, leaving those who survived to wallow in the aftermath.

Originally intended to be something a little more akin to one of Hershel Gordon Lewis's gorenographic epics, only with a lot more skin, fledgling filmmakers Wes Craven (writer/director) and Sean S. Cunningham (producer) were commissioned by Boston-based Hallmark Releasing -- who regionally distributed films, mostly violent foreign fright flicks, soft-core porn, and other drive-in fare -- to make them a new tits-and-ass flick, and the only caveat was to make it as violent and bloody as possible. Craven and Cunningham took the money and proved up to the task, deciding if violence is what they wanted then that is what they'd get; un-sanitzed and unfiltered for the unflinching eye of the camera; eventually tapping into something on a primordial level where the lines between good and evil, and sadly, what constitutes the difference between actual comedy-relief and insipid buffoonery, blur together like that eye-testing contraption at the DMV, whose viewfinder is totally scummed over with discarded DNA after decades of use and abuse.


Putting the lofty The Virgin Spring origin to the side, their nasty little exercise in guerrilla and pseudo-documentary film-making can be seen or distilled as a metaphor on many levels: as a final, scathing indictment on the failures of the 1960's counter-culture movement (-- Krug and Weasel are definitely anti-establishment, Junior dropped out, tuned-in and burnt out, and Sadie is "free love" gone horribly, horribly wrong); or bringing the reality of the Vietnam War home and dumping it in the audiences lap (the bloody and lingering deaths); or the complete and utter destruction of the classic atomic family (that I think Craven handled better in The Hills Have Eyes); or if you're so inclined you can take it at face value as an unabashed and unrepentant fright flick. But we're getting ahead of ourselves a little bit. As filming progressed, everyone involved from (the unknown) cast to the amateur film crew realized against the odds they were creating something that was a little loftier than originally intended, by design or by accident is up for debate, and the film soon changed course. The porn elements were whittled away to concentrate solely on the role-reversing plot and the horrific elements of the film. And though I think the film is most effective in the humiliation scenes, the protracted death of Phylis -- from her near escape, to the jump-scare in the cemetery, to her eventual disembowelment -- is one of the nastiest successions of cinematic gut-punches committed to film.


Kudos to actress Lucy Grantham for that tough, tough scene. And while we're handing those out, I know everyone points out David Hess' performance as Krug as being the ultimate cinematic degenerate, but it's the S.B.D. approach of Fred Lincoln's Weasel that really gives me the creeps.


Upon its initial release, under the titles Krug and Co., and later Sex Crime of the Century, the film opened with a dull thud. But leave it to the Hallmark publicity team to come up with a catchy, though nonsensical, alternative title and an insidiously infectious advertising campaign, and soon enough, the film took off and set off a firestorm of controversy over its content -- the violence, the misogyny, and the misanthropy of the filmmakers, that hasn't settled down even to this day. In the end, there was no gray area. You either loved it or at least appreciated the movie for what it tried to do (like me), or you hated and condemned it for what it did. You either bought into the use of violence to show how bad it is or you were completely screwed in the head and got your rocks off watching the rape and slaughter of two nubile young women. Of course, Hallmark took that controversy and added it to their press-kits and the box-office kept on booming.


Both its director and producer went on to lucrative careers in the field of horror movies (-- though one should note after they both tried and failed at more family-friendly genres) but took two different paths to get there and you can see the differences in style in the first finished product. While Craven was more interested in the motivation and abnormal psychology of what scared us, peeling back the onion, layer by layer, to get down to our more basic instincts and "feed the gators" -- to cop a phrase from Stephen King, Cunningham, on the other hand, was more of spook-show huckster, content to just set the audience up, tease them along, and then knock them down. These differences in approach are personified in the climactic duel between Krug and Dr. Collingwood. Originally, Craven had wanted them to have a scalpel duel, with Collingwood attacking the major arteries, leaving Krug to die a biblical death of a thousand cuts, but his producer thought bringing in a chainsaw added more bang for the buck. And I think if you look at the movie, the first half, where the deaths are unnervingly all too real, up to the point where the killers actually feel ashamed with what they've done, and no matter how hard they try, can't wash the blood off their hands, is all Craven, but the second half, the Collingwood's revenge, from the cartoony booby-traps, to Mrs. Collingwood taking a bite out of crime, to the chainsaw fight is all Cunningham.

Both men are listed as producers for the new Last House on the Left. But beyond that, I honestly don't know much about the remake and frankly it kind of snuck up on me out of nowhere -- the first I'd even heard of it was seeing the preview at a screening of the new Friday the 13th (which in my humble opinion was a colossal misfire. Thanks, Platinum Dunes...) And a pretty good trailer it was...

...until that last bit with the microwave. Yeah, ya kinda lost me there when you look to a late entry in the fizzling '80s slasher tsunami like Evil Laugh for some inspiration.


Actually, Evil Laugh isn't all that bad. Sure, it's a big old can of stoopid but it's an extremely entertaining can of stoopid, and it beat the ironic, self-awareness shtick of the Scream franchise by almost a decade. But we're here to talk about the Last House remake, right? Right. And again, I don't know much about the director, Dennis Iliadis, but I have heard of screenwriter Carl Ellsworth and thought Red Eye was pretty good until it fell apart in the third act. And Disturbia was pretty good, too, until it...uhm, until it fell apart in the third act, too. Ah crap, sensing a pattern here ... Still, I hold out hope that there is a little more meat to the movie than just the splatter elements. And I hope the film isn't just interested in the murder set-pieces, and like the original, devotes at least a little time to the why. I mean, There's got to be more to it than just watching some schmuck getting his wiener bitten off, right?

... Right?

Other Points of Interest:

Newspaper ads for Last House on the Left at the Morgue.

Last House on the Left (1972) Lobster Enterprises :: Sean S. Cunningham Films :: The Night Co. :: Hallmark Releasing / P: Sean S. Cunningham / AP: Katherine D’Amato / D: Wes Craven / W: Wes Craven / C: Victor Hurwitz / E: Wes Craven / M: David Hess / S: Sandra Peabody, Lucy Grantham, David Hess, Fred Lincoln, Jeramie Rain, Marc Sheffler, Richard Towers, Cynthia Carr