Nazism was a culture. This should be kept in mind when considering the notion that cultural sensitivity, as important a concept as it is, has limits. A similar notion applies to art. In the 1973 Miller v. California U.S. Supreme Court case, obscene works were defined as ones that, “taken as a whole, do not have serious literary, artistic, political, or scientific value.”
All this brings us to The Last House on the Left.
Before tackling the film itself, consider the 1972 incarnation. Written and directed by Wes Craven (Red Eye), the old The Last House on the Left (itself a remake of Ingmar Bergman’s Jungfrukällan, or The Virgin Spring) was a truly deranged piece of work. Only 82 minutes long, the film spent about 50 of those minutes with a group of ex-cons torturing two teenage girls before they are tortured themselves after accidentally arriving in one of the girls’ parents’ home.
Of course, torture in movies is fairly commonplace nowadays, so what really set Craven’s work apart was the depth of exploitative sleaze to which it sank. This culminated in a graphic and unnecessary rape scene, existing purely for shock value – a horribly infantile and irresponsible reason to stage a rape sequence.
Any justification of the scene as necessary for characterization purposes is ludicrous. In creative terms, there are a hundred other ways to show someone is evil. Pragmatically, there had already been about an hour of horrendous acts committed by the villains (which is the case in the update, as well), so their characters were already well-defined.
This is not to say rape is out of bounds in cinema. Indeed, there have been and will continue to be films that explore this act in complex and thoughtful ways, but they do it for a reason and don’t exploit it for a crude shock.
But the 1972 film also could not be dismissed as merely exploitation bereft of artistic merit. It was unique with its strangely upbeat music, the inclusion of slapstick comedy and the decision to have the final acts of violence perpetrated by sweet-looking parents.
Even further, the ending had the parents succeed in their revenge, only to have police witness their murderous acts. So there was at least an attempt to comment on the negative ramifications of revenge, albeit a moronically simplistic one.
Flash forward to 2009. Another remake emerges, with plenty of room to improve on the 1972 rendering. Instead, the filmmakers have managed to isolate all of the elements that gave Craven’s effort any value and remove them.
There is no unusual music – John Murphy’s (28 Weeks Later) score is very traditional. There’s certainly no goofy comedy. And the rape scene? If anything it’s been augmented, made longer and viler than its predecessor.
The film even has the audacity to play gentle, pretending-to-be-sensitive music after the rape as the victim, Mari (Sara Paxton, Superhero Movie), attempts to escape. The movie attempts in this moment to cloak itself as some genuine tragedy instead of the shameless garbage it is.
Last House exists in a certain niche of contemporary American cinema where morality is non-existent but pretends to be the main pivot. Sin City expected audiences to root as the villains were castrated and set to be eaten alive (on screen) by the so-called heroes. Last House is the type of film that encourages audiences to cheer as a man’s hand is ground up in a sink garbage disposal. This is what horror and revenge fantasy cinema has come to: when the upping of the gore ante has stretched to the breaking point.
And without giving away the ending, the new Last House does not even try to go to the same place the last one did in regard to suggesting negative consequences to revenge. It explicitly condones and revels in revenge until, once again, the so-called good guys have gone so far that the line is beyond broken and everyone is a villain.
Like the previous re-imagining, though, the new film is careful to squeeze in some gratuitous sexy shots of Mari, making sure to objectify her before demeaning her beyond belief. This is but one example of the hypocrisy eating away at Last House’s festering core.
If all this hasn’t convinced you the new Last House is exhibit A of amoral American cinema, consider one of the other changes from the first remake likely deemed too extreme for the latest version.
In the 1972 version, Mari’s mom (Cynthia Carr) seduces one of the ex-cons and fellates him before biting his penis off. Apparently, this would have been too much. But showing a woman’s rape in graphic detail was fair game. Feminists, you have the floor.
Do the world a favor: Don’t see this monstrosity. Let it sink back into the cesspool from whence it came.
dan.benamor@gmail.com
