Last House on the Left

En route to a Bloodlust gig in the big city innocent 17-year-old Mari Collingwood (Sandra Cassel) and her more worldly friend Phyllis Stone (Lucy Grantham) stop off to score some dope and walk right into the clutches of escaped murderer Krug Stilo (David Hess) and his gang – the "animal like" Sadie (Jeramie Rain), the perverted Fred 'Weasel' Podowski (Fred Lincoln) and Krug's junkie son Junior (Mark Sheffler).

Deciding to head for the border, Krug and company put the girls in the trunk of their car, which breaks down in the countryside. Taking the girls into the woods, the gang rapidly move on from victimisation and humilation – "piss your pants" – to torture – including Krug carving his name into Mari – rape and murder.

After cleaning themselves up and with night falling the group head for the nearest house. Masquerading as clean-living travelling salespeople they inveigle their way into dinner and beds for the night. Then their hosts – the Collingwoods, as it turns out – discover that Krug and co have murdered their daughter and extract their revenge…

The Last House on the Left always stood out amongst the ranks of the "video nasties". First, it was an American film, an under-represented category in the Euro-heavy nasty ranks. Second, it was made by film-makers who had gone on to mainstream success, with producer Sean Cunningham originating Friday the 13th and director Wes Craven Nightmare on Elm Street. Third, with the film-makers lifting their scenario lock, stock and barrel from Ingmar Bergman's The Virgin Spring and attempting to say something about man's capacity for violence and the demise of 60s idealism, there was even a veneer of arthouse atop the exploitation.

How successfully Last House combines arthouse and grindhouse is questionable.

The elements that are mythic in Bergman's film don't really work in a contemporary context, coming across as contrivances instead. How probable is it that Krug and co. would happen upon the house of one of their victims parents? Or that the Collingwoods, worried as they are about their daughter's whereabouts, would be in the frame of mind to put up four complete strangers?

A more serious flaw, though, is the unevenness of tone that results from the film-makers attempts to meet the demands of their audiences and the inclusion of some ill-advised comic relief.

While horror and comedy can often work well together, as film-makers as otherwise different as James Whale and Sam Raimi have shown, a rape-revenge scenario is just not the place for keystone cops or jolly singalong Dukes of Hazard music:

Weasel and Junior, Sadie and Krug
Out for the day with the Collingwood brood
Out for the day for some fresh air and fun
Let's have some fun with those two lovely children
And off them as soon as we're done

Similarly, while the rough, cinema verite style adopted by Craven to begin with increases the immediacy and intensity of the piece – the film-makers earlier work on the pseudo-documentary porno Together maybe paying an unexpected dividend – the switch to a more hyperbolic exploitation mode as the Collingwoods avenge their daughter undermines the overall impact and assertions to be saying something important.

Against these flaws can be weighed, first and foremost, the formidable performance of Hess as Krug. Introduced popping a kids balloon with his cigar – possibly a homage to Robert Walker in Strangers on a Train – while a radio announcer inform us that he was responsible for the triple slaying of a priest and two nuns and hooked his own son on heroin in order to better control him, he's one of the great screen villains, often almost going over the top but always pulling back just enough to remain on the right side of believable.

Fred J Lincoln (director of The Enema Bandit among many, many others) is likewise effective as Weasel, while former Mrs Richard Dreyfus Jeramie Rain does well with what is, in many ways, the film's most challenging part as the sole female member of the gang.

Worth watching, so long as you do not expect anything slick and polished like Scream.

For a time the only versions of Last House on the Left available on DVD were the Region 2 imports from France and the Netherlands, both pretty bare bones discs geared towards their respective domestic markets. Recently however we have seen new US and UK special edition releases.

In terms of picture and sound quality there isn't much difference between the releases. Though the US and UK discs are in 1.85:1 (with the former also including an alternative 4:3 fullframe version), the French and Dutch disc in 1.77:1, in truth the cropping is slight enough to make little difference to the viewing experience. Moreover, whichever version one goes for, the low budget nature of the piece is always going to show through in terms of a grainy, scratchy looking transfer and flat sound.

The major criteria, then, are whether or not the film is presented uncut and the extent and quality of the supplemental materials.

With regard to the former the best disc to go for is the US one. Though all the releases except the BBFC approved one are presented uncut, the US disc also includes an eight minute lost scenes featurette that includes the infamous entrail fondling scene, along with other extras – among them a commentary track with Craven and Cunningham and a 29 minute retrospective documentary – that far surpass the rather bare bones French and Dutch discs.

With regard to extras it's the UK disc that wins out, including as it does a second commentary track with David Hess, Fred Lincoln and Mark Sheffler; a ten minute featurette on the film's soundtrack; a 24 minute documentary on the film's UK screening, and much more.

Major league fans of the film will want both the US and UK releases to sit alongside their copy of David Szulkin's The Last house on the Left: The Making of a Cult Classic, while others should be satisfied with either.