L'ultima casa a sinistra

As a fan of the original 1972 version, I wasn't expecting a lot, but at the same time, with Wes being brought in as a producer, I felt it had to live up to some expectations.

What I got was a fun yet torturous movie that had the audience with it the whole time. They were gasping, hollering, sighing, saddened, and later clapping, laughing and woo'ing. It really takes you for a ride from the first moment and only lets up briefly, only to take you back down again.

While the original scores higher for "shock factor," this one still has plenty of gore and story. I'm not going to give anything away because I'm sure most of you know the story by the trailers, but overall this is an intense film that you won't forget anytime soon. If you know what happens, you'll be happy when the second half of the film picks up. If you have no idea, try to enjoy the ride as I'm sure you'll leave satisfied.

A few people in my theater left before it ended, so if you feel sick or faintful, just keep repeating to yourself: it's only a movie, it's only a movie, it's only a movie...

A remake of Wes Craven's 1972 movie. Fairly good, and better than the original.

The director builds the scenario and tension well and doesn't overdo the horror clichés. Convincing acting by a cast of unknowns.

The original was pretty much your standard 1970s B-grade exploitation thriller, complete with low production values and hammy acting. This version, on the other hand, is much slicker and has decent performances.

A gang kills two detectives and breaks out criminal Krug (Garret Dillahunt). Competitive swimmer Mari Collingwood (Sara Paxton) and her parents (Monica Potter, Tony Goldwyn) go to their vacation home. Mari reconnects with local friend Paige (Martha MacIsaac). The girls go to a motel room with Justin (Spencer Treat Clark) with the promise of some marijuana. They have a fun time until Justin's dad Krug, uncle Francis (Aaron Paul) and Sadie (Riki Lindhome) arrive. The girls are kidnapped and then Mari causes the car to crash.

As far as violent horrors go, this works better than most. The first half is the most compelling. The rape scene is pretty brutal. The violence is scary without the enjoyable fun. It's a horrific scene. The scariest part is actually the motel scene where the violence is just threatened. The second half is less scary by comparison. It's more traditional with the Collingwood family battling the criminal family. The whole movie works pretty well with some memorable brutality.

The Last House on the Left was just another in the endless glut of horror remakes that was triggered by the surprise success of Platinum Dunes' Texas Chainsaw Massacre reboot in 2003, but what makes this film stand out is its ability to truly reimagine the source material, highlighting different moments for emphasis, and turning it into a very different experience than the original film.

For all it's intensity and guts, the original film isn't a well made film by any stretch of the imagination. Camera work is mostly ugly, some acting isn't great, and the comic elements don't work and drag things down. This newer Last House is easily a better made and acted film even if some of the gorier aspects have been toned down.

If it has any faults, it's the awful ending which feels tacked on and completely unnecessary.

The biggest problem with horror movies today, specifically major Hollywood productions, is that even more than romantic comedies and the like, it is treated by studios and directors as an entry level position. These aren't, after all, the big dramas or 'prestige' movies. The result is an endless barrage of derivative, uninteresting tripe, many of them remakes produced by the like of Michael Bay and directed by those attempting to get started in the industry. Why this is even more of a problem is because horror films and comedy films depend on one essential thing: timing. Those which fall in the category of 'suspense thrillers', those which don't really seek to scare as much as your average slasher, films like "The Last House on the Left", depend on atmosphere. They depend on the building of suspense and tension and dread, even when the outcome is insanely predictable. These films require a director who has talent with timing, with creating atmosphere, with building suspense, and most of the time, especially recently (sure, there have always been awful horror films, but there was a time when studios financed some respectable films at least), the directors who take on such projects seem either incapable or uninterested in doing all they can to make the film work.

"The Last House on the Left" is a 're-imagining' of Wes Craven's accidental classic from 1972. That film displays Craven's potential, but while certain sequences are compelling it is cheap, clumsy, has a bizarrely chirpy bluegrass score, some awful acting (and some good acting), and the movie's biggest flaw: a Benny Hill-like slapstick subplot. Still, the movie worked. It worked precisely because Craven managed to create that atmosphere. That feel. The biggest fear I had going into this 're-imagining' is that the director Dennis Iliadis would turn out to be another Marcus Nispel, coming off his one previous film from 2004, "Hardcore", a film about prostitutes I had never heard about.

I needn't have worried. The film is far from perfect, but Iliadis' direction is one of the film's strongest points. Along with the excellent photography the film creates a dark, foreboding, grimy atmosphere of horror, and wisely cuts out the original film's slapstick, and also fixes the score: replacing it with gorgeous, haunting compositions which occasionally give way to guitars, but thankfully not too often. Iliadis uses hand-held camera as well as anyone, not over-doing it at all, but filming everything with a stark sort of clarity, and he finds a surprisingly effective rhythm for the film which keeps it from ever being mundane. The director is one to watch out for in the horror and thriller genres. Perhaps his most impressive achievement in the film is the incredibly tasteful and brutally disturbing rape scene. The film, like the original, avoids the pornographic nature of many rape-revenge thrillers, such as "I Spit on Your Grave" or for a more recent example the 'unofficial' remake of "The Last House on the Left" from 2005: "Chaos", which was so gleefully vicious it became sickening, not effectively disturbing.

Michael Phillips said it best: "The way director Iliadis shapes the key misery-inducing sequence, there's no hype or slickness or attempt to make the rape palatable or visually "dynamic." For that you have to go see Watchmen." The performances help. The only weak one is Riki Lindhome as Sadie, the murderous Krug's girlfriend. She takes her top off more than once for the movie's unneeded but inevitable nudity, but does little else. Garret Dillahunt is great as Krug and the rest of the cast good too, especially Monica Potter as Emma, the raped Mary's mother.

I won't spoil the changes to the story for you but it does a lot to separate itself from the original. It's not a straight remake and the changes work. The film's ultimate triumph is its intimacy. Iliadis succeeds in putting you in Mary's place and in her parents' place. Not one who succumbs much to vengeful thinking, I was convinced by the film that I'd have done the same things were I in the place of Mary's father, John, played by Tony Goldwyn.

The film's major flaw is the very last scene, a nonsensical moment belonging more in a Stuart Gordon film than this one. Up to that point, in spite of some mediocre sequences, the film is a triumph of atmosphere and style, and is genuinely well-written. If you're looking for fun or an intellectually stimulating film look elsewhere. For a shockingly, shockingly good rape-revenge thriller look no further. This movie works. It doesn't only stand head and shoulders above every other recent horror remake (and certainly the ones out so far in 2009), but it is in a whole other league when compared to most of the genre films Hollywood forces down our throats.