Two teenage girls venture into the big bad city to go to a concert. They try to score some pot but quickly discover that the gang they are trying to score from are, in fact, a gang of psychopaths. As expected, things go from bad to worse for the girls as they are humiliated, tortured and eventually killed in nearby woodland. The gang then pose as travelling salesmen and make excuses so that they can ask for refuge in a house near the woods. They quickly realise that the house belongs to the parents of one of the girls they have killed. The parents then realise that the gang aren’t who they say they are and overhear them talking about murdering their daughter. They decide to take revenge.

Last House on the Left is actually based on Ingmar Bergman’s film The Virgin Spring.

Last House on the Left is quite possibly one of the most controversial and notorious films ever made. I remember amid the Video Nasties furore, three films were spoken about as if they were actually made by The Devil- The Evil Dead, Driller Killer and Last House. During the pre-certification days of video, Last House had actually been released uncut on video. However, when every video had to be submitted to the BBFC for certification, Last House was banned outright, just as it had been in 1974 when the film was submitted for cinema release.

I first got to actually see the film when my friend Tom taped for me Last House along with Texas Chain Saw Massacre, I Spit on Your Grave and Cannibal Apocalypse. The picture quality wasn’t the best, and the sound not much better. But that added to the grimy, forbidden nature of seeing these warped masterpieces for the first time. I’m guessing that seeing any of these films for the first time in 4K UHD wouldn’t have the same effect.

Last House is much more than an exploitation film made for grindhouse cinemas and drive-ins. It’s brutal, uncompromising and refuses to shy away from showing what the girls go through at the hands of their tormentors. Does the film revel in these acts and show them as some kind of titillation? No. The camera just doesn’t turn away when other major studio films would have done. The film is a mirror and shows how repugnant, disgusting and repellent the gang’s acts are.

Last House also feels like a series of awkward juxtapositions. The girls talk in a hippy-drippy way about peace and love but are going into the city to see a band called Bloodlust. In real life, whilst The Mamas and Papas were California Dreamin’, Alice Cooper was selling out huge concert venues with his stage act that was pushing the boundaries. During one sequence, he appears to be beheaded via a guillotine onstage. The tide was turning.

There’s also the weird juxtaposition of the film’s comedic sequences with the brutality we see in some sequences. This is possibly because director Wes Craven was trying to cater for a drive-in audience and so he knew that some zany comedy was necessary for such an audience as well as the horror. He originally wrote the film to be a horror porno movie (the mind boggles!)

But the film also holds up a mirror to another, deeper juxtaposition. The peace and love of late 60’s America was being replaced by darker forces such as The Manson Murders, Altamont and, in years to come, Vietnam showing that American society at large was far from solely ‘peace and love’. These darker forces run through Last House on the Left. It’s heavily symbolic that the necklace that once belonged to the Collingwood’s daughter but is now around the neck of one of the gang, is a peace sign.

Another dark juxtaposition occurs when the gang take refuge in the house. The slovenly gang are now in the home (and power base) of a couple who represent an older and more conservative America. And, tellingly, when push comes to shove they are shown to be even more brutal than any of the gang. The ending of the film after Mr. Collingwood has finished his rampage with a chainsaw feels apocalyptic and earth-shattering. This has wider implications regarding the America of that era and the country’s transitions.

And just imagine, such a thought-provoking work was suppressed for years by moralists and religious busybodies who know nothing about film and hadn’t even seen the films they wanted to be banned. Thankfully, Last House was passed uncut by the BBFC in 2008. Sanity prevailed.

Last House is a tough watch but I’m glad it can now be seen.

4.5 out of 5 stars