THE LAST HOUSE ON THE LEFT (2009)

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"A Solid Slasher While Too Short and A Little Inconclusive It's Atmosphere and Suspense Keep It Entertaining and Scary"

The Last House On The Left is one of the few horror remakes that at least matches the original in terms of quality and entertainment. Not only does this new version keep the depravity of the original but at the same time it gives us believeable parents and fairly accurate teenagers. It's a well known fact that most teenagers smoke pot and the characters in this film smoke weed and yet are portrayed accuratley as smart, likeable people rather then brainless hippie douchebags. The big differance here is that in most slasher films for example Friday The 13th, Texas Chainsaw Massacre, or Saw you want to see the victims die you want to see the blood and carnage evoked by the crazy killers whereas here you are disgusted by the killers and you want the victims to survive. it's actually painful to watch the films rape scene because of how shockingly realistic it's played out to be and for the fact that you've to an extent gotten attatched to these characters. I'd compare Last House's savage nature to that of The Devils Rejects except there is no humour here. There isn't any twistedly delightful killers, no stereotypically funny yokels, no dumb victims it's got the sickness, the depravity, the realistic scope that Devils Rejects had but it feels more authentic and it feels more possible.

The acting is fairly good the parents Tony Goldwyn and Monica Potter pull off realistic parents with performances full of intensity and rage they aren't the most three dimensional characters but they aren't cliche enough for their lack of back story to be bothersome. Sara Paxton is great she plays a smart, and sweet young victim one we root for and one we deeply sympathize for in the twisted carnage she endures at the hands of three merciless killers. The killers sadly aren't very three dimensional either the lack of backstory here is what could have made this a five star movie if more attention was paid to making thesae characters have some sort of backstory, motive, or just more screen time in general the movies quality would increase drastically. Sadly they just come of as random sicko's without a sense of morality but again there is no reason for why they are so immoral nor for what kind of people they are sadly these are some lazily written bad guys. As you can see the problem does not lie with the acting but with the character development at least on the villains behalf the writing seems like this film was supposed to be a short little Masters Of horror episode that got dragged out into a movie that unfortunatly feels too short.

Luckily for this movie it's bad pacing and pointless villains are overcome by tremendous atmosphere and amazing suspense which in my opnion makes or breaks a horror movie. The Texas Chain Saw Massacre (1974) had lame acting, and boring characters but the atmosphere, look and feel of the film along with it's suspense made it a classic horror champion among it's genre. On a smaller degree Last House On The Left (2009) does the same thing although not anywhere close to the greatness of Chainsaw Massacre it's a solid horror flick and a satisfying slasher that is easy to get into and chalked full of disturbing moments horror fans will be pleasantly surprised. The lame cop characters from the original are taken out which is a plus and while it certainly is more polished and takes liberties with sequences and kills it is a pretty faithful and entertaining remakes of the 1872 Wes Craven classic. One more thing worth mentioning is John Murphy (28 Days Later) and his blisteringly creepy and adreneline pumping music he is a master and Last house On The Left is another proud moment in his compositional career.