Wes Craven horror flick is not quite the classic you’ve been led to believe
LAST HOUSE ON THE LEFT (Wes Craven, 1972)
Landmark Sunshine Cinema
143 East Houston St. between First & Second Aves.
Friday, June 1, and Saturday, June 2, 12 midnight
212-330-8182
www.landmarktheatres.com
Written and directed by Wes Craven, who went on to create the Nightmare on Elm Street films as well as The Hills Have Eyes and Swamp Thing, and produced by Sean S. Cunningham, who went on to create the Friday the 13th movie series, Last House on the Left is an insipid piece of vile trash, an embarrassingly exploitative hour and a half of sheer, repulsive filth. Mari Collingwood (Sandra Cassel) and Phyllis Stone (Lucy Grantham) are on their way to see the band Bloodlust for Mari’s seventeenth birthday when they stop to pick up some pot, but they really picked the wrong place to do that. They are abducted by Krug Stillo (David Hess), Krug’s son, Junior (Marc Sheffler), Fred “Weasel” Podowski (Fred J. Lincoln), and (Jeramie Rain), who do horrible things to them while Mari’s parents (Richard Towers and Cynthia Carr) worry about their daughter, getting no help from the ridiculous local cops (Marshall Anker and Martin Kove) who are supposed to serve as comic relief. Dennis Iliadis’s 2009 remake, starring Monica Potter, Sara Paxton, Tony Goldwyn, and Garret Dillahunt, produced by Craven and Cunningham along with Marianne Maddalena, is actually much better.