LAST HOUSE ON THE LEFT (1972)
Starring Sandra Cassel and Lucy Grantham
Young director Craven sure knew how to get the world's attention. With the tagline, "To avoid fainting, keep repeating, 'It's only a movie. ... It's only a movie. ...", Craven's directorial debut is one of the grimmest, most disturbing American movies ever made. Two teenage girls, hoping to score some pot, are kidnapped by a sadistic group of hoodlums. After raping and murdering the girls, the hoodlums by coincidence wind up as guests at the parents' home—and are promptly murdered.
An unofficial remake of Igmar Bergman's "The Virgin Spring," "Last House on the Left" remains a disturbing and controversial movie. Shot on cheap film with a shaky camera, Craven managed to make a movie that looked like a documentary. The tragic horror of this movie is that it's the kind of thing that really happens in America. Craven used some of the same style he displayed in this film at the end of "Scream," when the killer is of that story revealed.
Still, some fans of Craven may not like this movie. It's not a fun party film, there are no Freddie Krueger-like characters and the sadism is as graphic and real as anything that appeared in Pasolini's "Salo." It's a powerful study of how rape and violence are ripping up the fabric of America and a chilling artifact from the Vietnam War era. The film made a cult star out of David Hess, who plays the leader of the band of kidnappers and captured the essence of sadistic criminality in his role. Hess also wrote and performed the film's theme song, "The Road Leads to Nowhere." He would essentially play the same character over and over again in a string of other movies, including the much inferior "House by the Edge of the Park."
"Last House" is Craven's most horrifying movie because it is so real, and will be remembered as a taboo-breaker far longer than "Nightmare on Elm Street" or "Scream." At least two versions exist on tape, one more graphic than the other. But they're all gory, sadistic and disturbing. The version released on DVD in 2002 is considered the definitive uncut version, although there are likely other prints in existence with even more scenes intact. Apparently the film was cut so frequently -- even by some individual theaters that snipped parts out of their individual prints -- that it's impossible to know exactly what the "definitive" version is. The film is totally banned in the U.K. Sean Cunningham, who produced this, went on to direct "Friday the 13th."