[imdb tt0844708] So I’ve been avoiding having to do a review on this trailer. There are just too many emotions I have about this film. Three years ago, when I first moved out here to L.A., fresh out of college, I, of course, was unemployed. I was also bored out of my gourd. During that time, I became frustrated at the prospect of having to choose from my collection of 150 movies I’d already seen, and set about raiding my roommates’ libraries. Jason and I are constantly bickering about films, so, almost out of spite, I bypassed his collection, and instead checked out Carrie’s.
Carrie is a horror film addict. Her walls are covered in horror film posters, and she has almost every slasher film you can think of. Her favorite director is Wes Craven (she especially loves the Scream series), and tucked in with all her DVDs I found The Last House on the Left. “Hmmm,” I thought, “looks interesting.” It looked like a film that belonged in my mother’s cult classics book, which, when I was younger, I would surreptitiously read about The Legend of Billy Jack, Pink Flamingoes, Harold and Maude, and Behind the Green Door, as though it were forbidden knowledge…and as though my mother would even care I was sneaking a read.
So, I settled myself in front of the tv, to watch the film while I mated socks and folded laundry. It isn’t really a sock mating movie. It was like a train wreck; I was transfixed. It was probably the most gruesome film I’d ever seen. When Carrie came home that night, I mentioned it to her, and even she said that she had only seen it once, and once was enough for her.
It’s not as though I shy away from films with gritty subject matter. I don’t devote all of my hours of film watching to Disney Princesses and dog movies. I like a film that can turn my stomach and still make me think. Hard Candy, The Hole, and Heavenly Creatures still resonate with me (all H movies…interesting). There is something about certain films that hit you in just the right way that they embed themselves into your subconscious.
Last House on the Left certainly did that, and that is why I am so disgusted by the idea of the remake. It would be like remaking Casablanca or Citizen Kane. The Last House on the Left was Wes Craven pushing the boundaries of the horror film. He literally dissected what was on screen in order to show as many of the guts of realism as he could, without being completely censored and cut off. There is a nausea inducing element to the film where the audience empathizes with the characters to the extent that they imagine what it would be like to be them. Craven shows the baseness of human nature that audience members can’t see from the news or reading the papers. I applaud him for that…but I cannot condone this repackaging and franchising of the film. The first thing I think when I see the trailer is they are just in it for the money.
Yes yes, aren’t they all, you might say, but young Wes Craven wasn’t? He set out to evolve a genre, and he did just that. But now, instead of putting energy into trying to find something NEW, he just pulls out the tattered old script and says, “Here!” Wipes his hands together, “I’m done for the day.”
Shenanigans, I say.
Well, as for the trailer, it shows everything. There is nothing left to the imagination. We know what happens to the girls, we know the parents find out, and we know they take revenge. There is no reason to see the movie except to maybe compare it with the original. It’s appalling. The only thing that I’ve heard people are surprised about is the rape scene, which, if they knew anything about the original film, they should have expected. Furthermore, it annoys me that people would be so gung-ho to see this film when the trailer is riddled with violence, and then they’re offended at the rape scene. Why is society so ho-hum about murder and bloodshed, but rape is a no-man’s-land?? Do they not understand that it is all violence? Do they feel guilty about watching a rape but not about watching a paralyzed man with his head in a microwave? Does nobody see the imbalance there? Yes, rape scenes are uncomfortable, but they are no more or less “artistic” than the dozens of throat slashings, point blank head shots, and eye gouges. If you are going to see this movie to get that thrill that comes with seeing so much violence, I think you deserve that entire uncomfortable experience.
On the other hand, I love the last half of the trailer, with the horrific violence, the images of the parents avenging their baby girl, with the Taken by Trees cover of Sweet Child of Mine overlayed. The sweet slow pace of the song gives the viewer the sense that the parents themselves are immune to the brutality they are inflicting on these strangers, thinking only of their sweet child, dying on the kitchen table. Despite the fact that the author has probably shown us all of the highlights of the film (at least the ones they’re allowed to show on tv), the song choice intermingled with the content makes me want to give the film a shot. Thus, I’ll probably rent it on DVD.
That is why I review film trailers, because whatever audience the film ends up attracting is usually dependent on the quality of the trailer.
Rating: 
