“ The Last House on the Left” received mostly scathing reviews at the time of its release, though Roger Ebert praised the film as a harrowing exploration of evil and Robin Wood would embrace it as a trenchant critique of conservative values in the age of Nixon. The world is a horrible, scary violent place whether it’s medieval Sweden, Vietnam-era United States, or today, so the desire for revenge is enduring, too - and so, it seems, are the lessons that vengeance isn’t as clear cut a solution to dealing with this brutal world as we might sometimes like to hope it is.” “It speaks to something really fundamental and really ugly about human nature that transcends time. “Like ‘The Virgin Spring,’ this is much more than a historical document,” she told IndieWire. ‘You want to see violence? Here it is.’ The Vietnam War was going on, and as Wes put it, ‘At the time, it felt necessary to get to the guts of the matter.'” Film scholar Alexandra Heller-Nicholas, author of “Rape-Revenge Films: A Critical Study,” sees the film as both of its moment and timeless in its impact. Sean has said the idea was to produce a film so assaultive that it made an anti-violent statement, to show violence as ugly and brutal and personal as opposed to the sanitized ‘bang, you’re dead’ killing in a cowboy movie. “I don’t consider ‘Last House on the Left’ a horror movie like ‘Friday the 13th’ or ‘A Nightmare on Elm Street,’” said Szulkin. Craven might not have had any particular interest in horror, but by tapping into his own most primal fears and his rage about the political tumult in America at the time he created a film so disturbing that it remains the benchmark for no-holds-barred horror without mercy for either the characters or the audience. When those parents realize who their houseguests are and what they’ve done, they shed all pretense of middle-class propriety to commit acts of increasingly savage revenge. Using the plot of Ingmar Bergman’s “The Virgin Spring” as a template, Craven scripted a deeply unsettling tale of brutality and vengeance, in which a pair of young women are raped and murdered by a gang of thugs who end up seeking shelter in the home of one of the victims’ parents. The opportunity to make “Last House on the Left” came when the distributor of “Together,” a piece of soft-core erotica directed by Cunningham and edited by Craven, offered to finance a low-budget horror film. Oscars 2023: Best Original Song PredictionsĢ2 Great Erotic Thrillers, from Adrian Lyne to Brian De Palma Judd Apatow, Damon Lindelof, Shonda Rhimes Want More Responsible Gun Portrayals in Hollywood Quentin Tarantino Confirms 'Inglourious Basterds' Role Was Written for Adam Sandler Everybody has to start somewhere, and without ‘Last House on the Left,’ there might never have been a Freddy or Jason.” “I do not think Sean or Wes had any personal affinity for horror or set out to make an influential mark on the genre,” David Szulkin, author of “Wes Craven’s ‘Last House on the Left’: The Making of a Cult Classic,” told IndieWire. Either way, the horror genre was never the same: Craven, who was making his feature directorial debut with “Last House,” went on to helm several of the smartest, scariest, and most imitated horror films of all time, including “The Hills Have Eyes,” “A Nightmare on Elm Street,” and “Scream.” Cunningham, his producer, would exert an equally pervasive influence on the genre as the director of the original “Friday the 13th.” Ironically, neither filmmaker had a strong desire to make horror movies. Fifty years ago, two unknown filmmakers named Wes Craven and Sean Cunningham released their low-budget thriller “Last House on the Left.” Or, given its effect on audiences, maybe it’s more accurate to say they unleashed the film.
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