Wow… you know those discussions you have with friends after seeing a movie like Taken? Conversations where you say things like “if someone was to ever do that to my daughter, I would f-ck their world up”. Well The Last House on the Left basically puts that threat on film in graphic detail.
An escaped convict, his brother, son and girlfriend kidnap two young girls, sexually assault them (sigh) and kill one. The criminals then take up refuge in the home of John and Emma Collingwood only to realize that they are the parents of one of the girls. Once their identities are revealed, the mother and father find an assortment of creative ways to butcher and kill the people who hurt their innocent daughter.
Without a doubt my favorite character was the mother Emma Collingwood (Monica Potter), fooling us the entire movie by playing the part of the docile wife then switching to Ripley mode when her daughter gets hurt. The dad John Collingwood (Tony Goldwyn) shows you why a doctor could either be an enormous help or a painful threat… Krug (Garret Dillahunt) is an evil rapist sonofabitch who gets whats coming to him and that’s putting it nicely. Of all the characters in this dark tale, these three characters really own the show and each actor did a great job in their portrayal.
The only gripe I have with this movie is the rape that seemed to go on for 3 hours… I am not a fan of graphic rape scenes and the one portrayed here seemed very real and was torture to sit through… worse to me than even Deliverance, there I said it. The bad guys outside of Krug seemed to be stand-ins waiting for their turn to be killed since they could be left out of the movie and not be missed. The lead-up to the slaughter was a bit long but from the instance the girls are kidnapped you begin to feel the true terror of their situation. Something with the way it was shot makes you really worry for these girls as they are interrogated by Krug and eventually dragged out to the woods (can’t have a rape without woods right?)
It seems that with movies like this and Taken, Hollywood wants to scare parents into schooling their kids with some sort of street smarts (always a dumb friend leading an innocent one into some mess). These movies depict men at our lowest of lows, raping and beating teenage women like animals only to have the parent come at them like a bat out of hell. Well if you love thrillers, and you love the aspect of seeing the good guy get some “get back” then go see The Last House on the Left, it was enjoyable outside of the rape and will be joining my collection.
Written by Greg Dragon – who has written 365 reviews on Spicy Movie Dogs.
Cinephile and opinion writer, Greg Dragon has been a fan of movies since the 80's when Kung Fu theater was all the rage and Roger Moore was James Bond. As an opinion writer that has reviewed Box Office releases on a number of prominent websites, Greg is the founder and lead critic of Spicy Movie Dogs.
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