Lake Ends in Road

I saw the Last House on the Left remake over the weekend, and I was pretty impressed. Remakes are coming hard and fast and in worse and worse condition, but I thought this was just a solid movie. Sure, it was a little more "shiny" than the original (due to the use of nice/working cameras and equipment), but the content was just as earthy and gritty.

Garrett Dillahunt is amazing as Krug, the main baddie of the film. He was great in Deadwood, (both times) and I liked what he added to the casts of The Believer and No Country for Old Men). I hope he gets more high profile work in the future. Sara Paxton, who some of you might know as Marnie from Return to Halloweentown, did a good job in her role as the raped and beaten child of the couple whose titular house is used as the main set piece of the film. Her adjustment from Disney TV star to grown up dramatic actress surprised me. I didn't expect her to illustrate such range. (I can hardly be blamed for having low expectations from her. Two of her last movies were Aquamarine and Superhero Movie!)

Some things about the movie were a bit unnecessary, but that's no different from the original. The basic plot is that two young girls are out on the town and run into a group of criminals. They are raped and beaten and one is left for dead, the other is killed. Coincidentally, the criminals seek shelter for the night at the house of the nearly dead girl's parents. The parents discover who the killers are and vice versa. Ultra-violence ensues. **SPOILERS** I liked the decision to remove the blowjob castration scene...but replacing it with the head exploding in the microwave at the end seemed a bit overdone. That scene comes at the very end, almost as bonus, and just didn't fit. I'm sure someone thought it would make for fine closure, but it wasn't necessary.

Last House on the Left was originally made in 1972 by Wes Craven. It was his first film and he has maintained that the movie reflects social feeling and reactions against the atrocities of the Vietnam War from that time period. Since Craven's film is such a cult classic among horror enthusiasts, the new version has been under fire for lacking that Vietnam context. You could always argue that this version could reflect feelings about the war in Iraq, but since it's not an original vision, that wouldn't really make any sense.

However, slighting this new version for not having Vietnam context is ridiculous. There aren't any characters in the original that were in Vietnam or who talk about the war at all. The only reason anyone knows that the extreme violence is a blow back from social unrest is from interviews and articles with Craven and (producer) Sean Cunningham. Taken on its own merits, the 2009 remake is a good film with a well-shot graphic and brutal rape scene, the crux of the original production as well, and great, evil characters to root for and despise respectively.

Apart from the lack of obvious Vietnam context, which is an argument used to create a deeper sense of worth in something that is really just a horror movie, albeit a good one (and has been used before for such movies as Night of the Living Dead and The Texas Chain Saw Massacre), Last House on the Left (1972) is based on a film by Ingmar Bergman from 1960 called The Virgin Spring. The plot is the same, except it's just one girl instead of two and at the end of the film the father repents and promises to build a church on the spot where his child was murdered, even though in the same breath he questions why God would allow such a series of events to take place at all.

The Virgin Spring is itself based on a 13th century Swedish ballad from whence it derives its plot. Since the actual original source material is from 13th century Sweden, it doesn't make much sense to discard the 2009 effort because it has no Vietnam context. It doesn't need any context. The Shining doesn't have any world-view context and it's fantastic. Alien doesn't have current affairs context but it's great too. The same goes for Audition and Jaws. These movies are just good. And instead of bitching that the movie doesn't have any possible way of relating back to the world events that caused its predecessor to be made, why not focus on the fact that it's the best horror film of this year, remake or not.