From 1970s to 2009, Last House on the Left has failed to thrill the audience once again. Friday the 13th was the ominous day chosen for the release of the movie and the day may have been chosen to help make the movie scarier, but the movie was not a horror. Last House on the Left was full of gore and amateur acting. The story is a classic good verse evil with a twist. Mari, played by Sara Paxton, goes to her lake house with her parents for vacation. She meets up with her friend, Paige, played by Martha MacIsaac, and they meet a Justin, played by Spencer Treat Clark, who leads them through life and death experiences because of his father. His father, an escaped murderer, and his father’s “gang” of friends kidnap Paige and Mari. They kill Paige and rape Mari and then leave her for dead.
The murders go to a house, which happens to be Mari’s house. Her parents are unaware what has happened to their daughter and that the people sitting in their living room are the ones that tried to kill her. Mari swims home and crawls to her house and her parent’s find out their houseguests are trouble. The twist in the story is that her parents set out to kill the people who tried to kill their daughter. The whole movie is gruesome and vulgar. The murderer’s girlfriend walks around topless for some of the movie, for no apparent reason. They show the rape of Mari, which is the most disturbing scene in the whole movie. Each killing of the murderer’s is over done and gory. The first one to die gets stabbed in the chest then gets his hand chopped up in the garbage disposal then is stabbed in the head.
The movie jumps from over kill murder to just a plain shooting of the second murderer. It kept jumping all over the place. It went from overkill dramatics to simple acting. The actors at points in the movie over acted and at others did not do enough to convey what they wanted to. The audience had no idea if they were confused or felt regret for their horrible crimes. The last murderer, Justin’s father, is beaten then has his head microwaved and blown up. They try to end it with a happy ending of Justin and Mari both live and escape along with her parents, but after all the horrible crime scenes the audience is left not thrilled or happy. The ending does not go with the rest of the tone of the movie. It may have tried to recapture the classic of 1979, but it just proved that you couldn’t beat an original.
By Rachel Vaca, staff writer
