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On her 17th birthday, Mari (Sandra Cassell) goes to New York City to visit a rock concert with her friend Phyllis (Lucy Grantham). Unfortunately, they have the idea to buy some dope from Junior (Marc Sheffler), who invites them into his apartment - where the girls meet escaped convicts Krug (David Hess) - incidently Junior's father - and Weasel (Fred J. Lincoln) and their friend Sadie (Jeramie Rain) ... and they want to have a fun time with the two girls ... which means raping and torturing them.

After the quartet had a bit of fun with the girls in the city, they decide to take them to the country (in the trunk of their car), where they further rape and torture them and humiliate them by forcing them to have lesbian sex and pee their pants. Finally, the two girls make escape attempts and are each one killed ...

Incidently, the whole affair took place only a few hundred yards away from the house of Mari's parents (Richard Towers, Cynthia Carr), and after the baddies have killed the girls, they actually seek abode at their house, without at first knowing who they are. Mari's parents, despite being worried sick about their daughter, put Krug and gang up for the night, and only eventually, by listening in on them, they learn who they really are - and decide to have revenge, bloody revenge ...

Wes Craven's first feature Last House on the Left already shows the director at the top of his game: The film, quite obviously inspired by Ingmar Bergman's Virgin Spring, is a clever yet very disturbing mix of visceral horror, carefully placed shocks and elaborate suspense sequences, all in the context of an entertaining if controversial story - that sure enough is not to everybody's liking -, carried by a directorial effort slick enough to obscure the film's low budget, yet at times crude enough to give the on-screen goings-on some immediacy. Add to this a competent cast, first and foremost David Hess, as scary as ever in his screen debut, and you've got one hell of a film.

Interestingly, during his long and uneven career, Craven only rarely managed to make another movie as shocking and disturbing as this one.

Recommended - but one might need a strong stomach.

review © by Mike Haberfelner

 

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