Wednesday, January 23, 2013

2009 Horror Fest: Last House On The Left: 74 Out Of 100 Stars

Very solid film that seems to do everything well, yet doesn't quite resonate as well as it should for whatever reason. I've only seen bits and pieces of the original so I don't know how faithful this version is to it, but it stands pretty well on it's own.

I think the problem in the overall outcome of the film comes from the last act and the back and forth between the killer and the family that too easily falls into typical action movie give and take. To relate to wrestling terms we want the babyface dad to run wild and get his revenge but his partner has to keep saving his ass. Eventually he gets his revenge but it's lessened because of the help he needed.

Everything up until the 3rd act action is really well done. The killers are humanized nicely, making them even scarier. The showing of the dying cops kids to him, the rape, the treatment of the son, all of it sets the tone very nicely and would have been served much better if the third act of the film were more definitive.

Some pretty brutal violence, a nice rape, some sweet nearly underage sexuality and decent kills make for an overall fun time that could have veered into a really good film had it not gotten so by the numbers at the climax. The final scene is real out of place and doesn't have near the effect it would have had, had it been placed about 10 minutes earlier.

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