"The Last House on the Left"(2009)d/Dennis Iliadis

I could seriously spend the next four paragraphs describing in vivid detail how thoroughly tonight's review sucks.In fact, the last time I experienced sucking of this magnitude, I felt compelled to buy her fucking roses afterwards(Don't get excited, I didn't). The latest casualty of Hollywood's recent shameful cheap buck remake pitch is none other than Wes Craven's 1972 cult classic, Last House on the Left, another movie that probably should have been left well enough alone, despite being a low budget remake of Bergman itself.At the very least, if you're gonna tackle a remake of this magnitude, try to pay homage to the original by doing it some justice with respect to its fanbase, instead of leaving it in the ineffectual mitts of those eventually responsible for such an ephemeral mess as this.Though I wasn't a big fan of the tweaks in the new script, apart from the complete ommission of the bumbling cops storyline(and the less I have to see close-ups of cackling toothless chicken-tending hags, the better), the fault clearly lies in the casting.Looking at the updated Krug and company, as portrayed by Garret Dillahunt, Aaron Paul, Riki Lindhome, and Spencer Treat Clark, respectively, leaves me thinking the worst crime any of these cats would ever commit would be pirating internet connection off of an upstairs neighbor.The original cast had a vérité scumbag vibe that permeated every frame they occupied, that frankly, still makes me a little itchy whenever I watch it today.What Iliadis has created here is less edgy than a jam spreader, little more than a glorified episode of Dawson's Creek with a few uninspired gore set pieces.Don't even get me started about the friggin' microwave...

"Help! I'm being shanked up by soap opera actors!"
After a daring escape from police custody orchestrated by his lanky squeeze, Sadie(Riki Lindhome) leaves two transporting officers dead, Krug(Garret Dillahunt), Francis(Aaron Paul), and company hole up in a nearby hotel room where Krug's son, Justin(Spencer Treat Clark) has been entertaining two teenaged girls, Mari(Sara Paxton) and Paige(Martha MacIsaac), with his boyish charms and his seedless stinky buds.With Krug's grill all over the local paper, they decide to take the girls hostage, jacking their vehicle to flee the state.As cruisers speed past them and Krug searching for the road to the highway, Mari directs him down the road to her parents' summer home on the lake, instead.She puts the vehicle's cigarette lighter out in Sadie's face in an attempt to distract her kidnappers long enough to jump out, which culminates in the front end wrapped around a tree and a hearty beating from Krug and his furious, disfigured arm decoration.Krug tries to force his son to score some cheap grope-jollies off of the terrified girls, but decides to impose some surprise sex on Mari himself, instead, when the boy is reluctant.Paige deducts that insulting the would-be rapist is the protocol for getting him to leave her girlfriend alone.She turns out to be wrong, mistaking the procedure for getting repeatedly stabbed in the labonza by Krug and Francis for it.Mari watches Paige bleed out on the ground a few feet away while she's assaulted by the leader, who shoots her in the back afterwards when she tries to swim away to safety.A coming storm forces the fugitives to the nearby house of John and Emma(Tony Goldwyn, Monica Potter), the parents of the girl they've just left floating in the lake to die.

It's barely a movie.It's barely a movie.It's barely a movie...
At the house, Justin realizes exactly who his family's hosts are, and is instantly wracked with guilt, leaving Mari's necklace on the counter for her parents to find later.That night, John and Emma find their daughter, barely clinging to life, slumped on the porch after having swum and crawled from the lake in a seriously wounded state.Her father, a doctor, performs some impromptu dining room table surgery to alieviate her suffering, then later plants a hammer's claw into Francis' skull after jamming his mitt into the trash compactor in the sink drain.When the couple goes into the bedroom to finish off Krug and Sadie, they find Justin holding his old man's burner.He gives the doctor the gun, but Sadie awakens and distracts the vengeful father long enough for Krug to high tail it outta there.Emma puts lead in Sadie's loaf while her husband hunts down the gang's leader, who eventually gets K.T.F.O.ed by his own son(can you imagine the schoolyard chants that woulda grown outta something like this?)and Mari's desperate folks, who speed away in a boat towards medical care for their daughter.Krug, on the other hand, rendered paralyzed by the good doctor, lies with his head precariously laid on the tray of an open microwave that John has impossibly rigged to nuke the villain's head even with the door ajar.One exploding dome later and Death in Vegas takes us into the end credits.

Palmolive dishwashing liquid? Why, you're soaking in it.
I'm not surprised by the fact that I hated this boring plate of re-re-heated leftovers, as I'd once told the real Krug that it was destined to be a trainwreck that I'd never willingly sit through(Sorry, Hess, wherever you are, I finally gave in for the sake of a good laugh).What surprises me is how many of you out there actually dig this mess:The fact that this actually has a higher user rating on imdb than the Craven original(6.6 to 5.9) currently does is proof positive that a lot of people out there these days like their horror movies glossed over with bad guys that look like a perturbed Burger King manager, his cashier, and the respective fries jock, and neutered with no scares or tension to speak of and obligatory happy ending.I reiterate.Even without the inevitable comparison to the 1972 film, Iliadis' movie is about as tense as two kittens wrestling on a yarn afghan, relying on antagonists who are as threatening as a skinned knee.His earlier effort, 2004's Hardcore, about two Greek chicks in a brothel, looks entirely more interesting than this ended up being.Zero biggies on the scale for you, Last House, in the hope that you really are the last Last House I'll ever have to visit.Skip altogether, if you know what's good for you.

Lazy revenge:Sure, half of his face'll be exploded, but the other half is bound to turn out all rubbery and overcooked.

"Last House on the Left"(1972)d/Wes Craven

I don't go in much for Top Ten lists here at the Wop,as mine,fickle bastard that I am,changes with my mood,so it's rare that we cover anything that would conceivably make my "greatest horror movies" list,but I've been pestered recently to cover one that's always been in my Top Ten,most of the time residing in the Top Five.For someone who prides himself on rare films and unknown classics,my Top list is usually pretty boring,and filled mostly with genre titles you'd guess would be on it in the first place.The reason I rarely tackle those movies here,is that so much has been said and written about the vast majority of them,I doubt I could ever shed any new light on them.Tonight,then,we'll draw focus on one such movie,and dedicate the review to Chelsea,who's arguably the most avid fan of said film in the world,and hope that what follows is acceptable;anyone who's perma-giddy over such dirty cinematic dealings is probably someone you'd want to keep on your good side,right?
Everybody remembers their initial introduction to their favorite things.My future fourth grade teacher was an attractive Greek broad,who dressed like Chrissy Snow from Three's Company,and resembled porn star Desiree Cousteau to a certain degree.I would often stray up to the older grade classrooms and make convo with the teachers over the way the world was going,music,movies,etc.As a pudgy class comedian with a bowl haircut,I made a point to be as socially outgoing as possible,and thus was a favorite among most of the teachers at my soon-to-be condemned grade school.Mrs. L and I were discussing movies one day when we got to the subject of the worst movie we'd ever seen.She answered,haughty and immediate."Last House on the Left.I went to see it with some girlfriends a few years back,and we walked out!These killers cut off a girl's arm...you're too young to see it,and anyway,it's trash!Ha! Ha! Ha!"Naturally,I knew right then and there I had to see it and plotted and schemed until I finally got my chance when it was re-released at the outset of the eighties.You could probably cue some romantic mood music right here...

Krug(David Hess)pounds his puh-hailus into Sadie(Jeramie Rain)on the open road,while Weasel(Fred Lincoln)plays the third wheel.
Mari Collingwood(Sandra Cassel),who is turning seventeen,is going into the city to see Bloodlust in concert with her free-spirited girlfriend Phyllis(Lucy Grantham),despite some minor protest from her folks,who give her a peace symbol pendant as an early gift.On the way into Manhattan,the girls hear a radio news broadcast that degenerate sex criminal Krug Stilo(David Hess)and his partner-in-crime,"Weasel" Podowski(Fred Lincoln)have made a daring escape from prison,thanks to Krug's animalistic female counterpart,Sadie(Jeramie Rain)and his illegitimate son,"Junior"(Marc Sheffler),who's been hooked on junk by his own father for the purpose of controlling him.Though they might seem like bumbling ne'er-do-wells at first glance,with Krug running the pantsmeat to Sadie as he drives the getaway convertible in broad daylight,nothing could be further from the truth.The girls wander the lower east side,looking to score some grass before the show,and are lured back to Stilo's hideout by Junior,who gets thrown a fix for his handiwork.Phyllis' resistance buys her a good one in the labonza,and then she's raped before Mari's disbelieving eyes.Mari's parents prepare her surprise party back home,obliviously unaware of the hot mess she's gotten herself in.The next morning,Krug and company stuff the captive girls into the trunk of their car before driving into the countryside with plans of fleeing the state manhunt.Ironically,their car breaks down just feet from the Collingwood home,and both girls are dragged into the woods nearby,where,at knifepoint they are forced into lesbianism with each other,after Krug orders Phyllis to piss her pants,which she does,naturally.Phyllis decides to make a break for it,and pays by eating stilleto-inflicted body ventilation at the hands of Weasel,before being graphically disembowled and dismembered.Mari appeals to Junior's last remaining glimmer of humanity,but is thwarted by Krug,who carves his name in her chest and rapes her after showing her Phyllis' severed arm.She stumbles,catatonic and violated,into the lake where Krug finally puts her out of her misery with well-placed bullets.Happy birthday,darling.

After Phyllis(Grantham)pissed,she and Mari(Cassel)were enlisted for an impromptu sapphic tryst before both junior misses cease to exist.
Krug and cohorts silently wash the blood off in the lake,and change into more formal attire before descending on the Collingwood house psoing as travelling salesmen,unaware that they've just walked into the house of one of the girls they've just brutally slain.Mari's parents serve the fugitives dinner,but their piggish table manners and half-assed story help paint a truer picture of who they really are,reality setting in when Mrs. Collingwood(Cynthia Carr) notices the pendant they had given Mari the day before around Junior's neck.Later that evening,she rummages through their luggage and finds blood-drenched clothing,and when she and her husband head out into the woods surrounding their house,they find their lifeless daughter's body on the shore of the lake.Oh yes,there will be revenge.Mrs. C. lures Weasel outside on the promise of rough sex,binding his arms behind his back,and bites his dick off in mid-fellatio.Dr. Collingwood sets up an electric shock trap while brandishing his trusty shotgun,but Krug escapes into the living room where he easily overpowers the middle-aged man.Just before he can add the doctor to his growing list of homicides,a dopesick Junior appears,wielding Krug's gun,with intent to shoot his own father,allowing the doctor to escape,while Krug psychologically destroys his mentally frail offspring,ordering him to blow his own brains out,which he does.By the time Krug notices the old man has disappeared,he reappears,with a revving chainsaw in tow.The bumbling sheriff,who had only existed for comic relief prior to this point,arrives on the scene just in time to beseech Collingwood not to dice Stilo into pieces,which he does anyway.Outside,Mrs. C. and Sadie have a good old fashioned catfight,which Sadie loses when the vengeful mother slits her throat in the family pool with her own stiletto.The couple reunite in the living room,and embrace,covered in blood.Indeed,the road led to nowhere.

Krug,with mouth agape,slobbers on Mari's nape,mid-rape.
Prior to cementing himself in history as one of the greatest cinematic bastards to ever grace the silver screen,Hess began his career as a songwriter,writing hits for Sal Mineo,Elvis Presley, Andy Williams,and Pat Boone(!!!),recording two solo lps before becoming the head of A & R at Mercury Records in 1969.His soundtrack for tonight's entry is incredible,to say the least,mixing vaudevillian slapstick with rich folk music,and adding to the insanity occuring on the screen.He's worked with Campanile,Craven,Deodato,Fassbinder,and recently,Eli Roth,as well as releasing two more albums,and starring in an upcoming remake of Ferrara's Driller Killer.People seem to think he is the bastard they see upon the screen,but I can honestly say he's one of the nicest guys I've ever had the pleasure of knowing.Lincoln,on the other hand,went on to direct some 289 adult films,produce 19,and act in 46,a member of the AVN Hall of Fame,scoring a Critic's Adult Film award for Best Director with 1984's aptly titled,Go For It.I'm green with envy,Fred.Rain went on to write and produce for NBC,having relationships with Bob Dylan,John Belushi,and John Savage,before marrying and later divorcing Academy Award winning actor Richard Dreyfuss(!!!),with whom she has three children.We talk enough about Craven and Cunningham here that I shouldn't have to update you on their exploits.We wont go into the 2009 remake that Craven agreed to produce after seeing long dollars put in front of his face.The power of the original is in the verite' style the film was shot in,and the believability of the monstrous Stilo crew,whose grime and evil drip off the screen in every frame.There's no way anyone could recreate that,especially with a cast that looks like they just got done filming Dawson's fucking Creek.This is one of the greatest exercises in modern realistic horror cinema,and for being that,it merits four wops and comes with my highest recommendation.

Like all great artists,Krug signs his work.