Film review: The Last House on the Left

THE LAST HOUSE ON THE LEFT (18) *

DIRECTED BY: DENNIS LIADIS

STARRING: JOSHUA COX, MONICA POTTER, SARA PAXTON, GREG DILLAHUNT

OF ALL the well-known horror films that didn't need a slick Hollywood remake, Wes Craven's 1972 debut The Last House on the Left is the one that should have remained untouched. An unrelentingly brutal exploitation film with artistic pretensions (Craven based the premise on Ingmar Bergman's The Virgin Spring), its roughly shot, sadistic depictions of rape made it the original gonzo torture porn film. Though often well acted and at times impressively directed, the new film eliminates Craven's ugly-to-the-core visual style, tones down the violence and softens the bleakness of the original premise, yet in doing so it becomes more problematic. There still exists a sustained, unbearably graphic rape scene of a young girl, and because, aesthetically speaking, it is very well shot, the effect is that this horrific act has now been reduced to little more than a glib justification for her parents to seek some third-act, guilt-free, audience-juicing retribution against her attackers.