|
|
 |
Last House On The Left: Unrated
[Blu-ray]
Blu-ray ALL - America - Universal Pictures Review written by and copyright: Anthony Arrigo (10th September 2009). |
|
The Film
 I’ve come to accept the fact that every single semi-viable property in the horror genre will be raped and pillaged for years to come. Horror films have always been guilty of cannibalism; most plots are rehashed over and over again only with a different beast/stalker/psycho filling in the gaps, but at least the filmmakers were trying to do something different before all of this. In this era of non-stop remakes, many of the genre’s classics have been, or are going to be, remade as inferior clones. Some of these bother me greatly while others, such as “The Last House on the Left” (1972), do not. I’ve always felt that the original LHotL (that’s the anagram I’m using from now on) is highly overrated. In fact, I distinctly remember feeling slightly disappointed once I’d finally seen it. The film was very controversial when it premiered, and rightly so since it features many scenes of degradation, humiliation and uncomfortable sexuality. But that was over 35 years ago, and by today’s horror standards the film is fairly tame. I’m also less concerned since that film was itself a remake of Ingmar Bergman’s near-flawless 1960 film “The Virgin Spring”. LHotL has already been remade once, albeit unofficially, as “Chaos” (2005) by wrestling fetishist David “The Demon” DeFalco. He didn’t get it right and, unfortunately, neither did this incarnation’s helmer, Dennis Iliadis, though I will say that the film is not entirely bad. Mari Collingwood (Sara Paxton) and her family arrive at their lakefront home for a family trip, and that night Mari decides to go out with her friend, Paige (Martha MacIsaac). At Paige’s liquor store job they meet Justin (Spencer Treat Clark), a shady character who claims to have some “good shit” back at his hotel room. Since anyone with weed must be a friend indeed, they decide to give him a lift. The girls hang and party for a while until Justin’s father, Krug (Garret Dillahunt), and his girlfriend, Sadie (Riki Lindhome), and Uncle Frank (Aaron Paul), all wanted fugitives, arrive and break up the soiree. Rather than allow the girls to leave, the trio takes them out into the woods for a few hours of torture and rape before finally killing Paige and seriously wounding Mari. When a rough storm forces the group out of the woods, they end up the home of Mari’s family, Dr. John Collingwood (Tony Goldwyn) and Emma (Monica Potter), who eventually find Mari barely alive and then choose to seek revenge on the people who did this to her. This was one of those rare occasions where the crew had a great opportunity to improve upon the original film. One step they did take in the right direction was dropping the bumbling sheriff and his equally-incompetent deputy, along with their country bumpkin theme music. Those scenes always stuck out like a sore thumb in the 1972 film. I also really enjoyed what they did with the character of Mari. She’s smart, has her wits about her, thinks like you’d expect a rational person to; the polar opposite of how most teen girls are written in horror films nowadays. Unfortunately, they also dropped some important aspects to the story, like the fact that Krug keeps his son high on dope all the time so he can’t leave the group. Here, Justin isn’t hooked on drugs, nor is anyone else it seems, so why he doesn’t run away at any time is beyond me. The lead trio here is a pale imitation of the group 35+ years ago. Garret Dillahunt is no David Hess, I’ll tell you that much. He lacks any charisma whatsoever, and his sidekicks are reduced to clichéd sycophants. Sure, they’re scumbags but they’re more like the Rob Zombie archetype of a derelict, not true sociopaths. The main protagonist cast doesn’t fare any better. Tony Goldwyn is a good actor, and I thought he rocked as the guy with a Cracker Jack box gun in “Friday the 13th VI: Jason Lives” (1986), but I didn’t buy his turn from devoted Dr. Dad to Charles Bronson wannabe. I guess all that Hippocratic Oath b.s. just went right out the window along with any shred of credibility his character had. I probably would have bought it if the daughter had died as she did in the original, but I would think his concern would be getting Mari to a hospital and not recreating scenes from some “Saw” (2004) sequel. Speaking of “Saw”… Monica Potter plays Mari’s mom, and boy does she suck. Bad. Potter must have been given a Botox facial right before the shoot because she couldn’t possibly have a more difficult time getting her face to visibly show some emotion. It’s like watching a doughy, plastic Don Post mask try to emulate feelings in a realistic fashion. She’s so bad it almost makes me wish Julie Benz had gotten her role. Almost. Thankfully, Sara Paxton isn’t half bad as Mari. I thought she brought some real emotional weight to her role, as did Martha MacIsaac as Paige, so not everyone here is a total loss. Director Dennis Iliadis shows a good eye for shooting, but he’s not exactly a master at ratcheting up the tension. I’ll give him credit for not resorting to cheap “stinger” scares to get a jump out of the audience. He prefers to focus on indescribably nihilistic actions to make us squirm in our seats and, for the most part, he succeeded for the first 2/3 of the film. The last third turns into a typical stalk-and-smash brawl that ground to a halt any of the slow-burning tension that preceded it. Hopefully he finds a better project to latch onto in the future because he did produce some wonderful shots throughout the film. He certainly has a good eye for aesthetics on film, which should bode well for future endeavors. The original team of Wes Craven and Sean S. Cunningham return as producers on this film. Craven hasn’t been relevant to the genre in a decade, so I can only assume he’s here to either see it got done right or for the money. I’m willing to bet on the latter. Cunningham is an opportunistic whore, so I know why he’s here. $$$. I find him to be particularly pathetic because he has proven he cares very little about the films he’s already done (the guy birthed the “Friday the 13th” (1980) franchise and yet chooses to distance himself from it entirely), but he seems to instantly materialize when there’s talk of a new film, remake or otherwise, that can net him some additional cash. I enjoyed the film’s score by composer John Murphy. He had previously worked on films such as “28 Weeks Later” (2007), “Sunshine” (2007) and “Miami Vice” (2006). It’s nice to not be sonically assaulted by heavy metal music in a horror film because it almost never works, so Murphy’s ambient, electronic style synthesized well with the images on screen. This is another example of a wasted opportunity to make a cult classic a better film by way of remaking it. Movies like “Halloween” (1978), “The Fog” (1980) and “The Texas Chain Saw Massacre” (1974) could never have been made better than their initial cinematic incarnations, so it was fruitless from the beginning to attempt to improve upon them. LHotL had the potential those didn’t and, yet, it still managed to be a monumental failure. I’m all about supporting R-rated horror movies because it sends the message that we horror fans don’t want PG-13-rated teen flicks, but this isn’t up to par with what I had been hoping for... This Blu-ray contains the R-rated "Theatrical" cut of the film as well as the requisite-for-horror-on-home-video "Unrated" version. The difference is only 4 minutes, but they pack quite a wallop to the overall picture. Aside from the usual additions of extra blood and gore, there are some quick character beats and, most notably, the rape sequence has been extended to an unnerving, "I Spit on Your Grave" (1978) style length. Those who thought this scene was tough to watch in theaters would do well to keep the fast-forward button handy, as it's even more unsettling here.
Video
Universal has been cranking out some damn fine Blu-ray transfers, and “Last House” is no exception. The 1.85:1 1080p 24/fps VC-1 encoded transfer looks fantastic… during the daytime scenes. It’s at night where the image started to lose me. The black levels seemed to be inconsistent, with some crushing and shallow depth in the darkest areas of the frame. The opening scene was very grain heavy, but I have heard that was the intention of Iliadis so I can give it some leniency. As I said, though, the daytime scenes look near-flawless. Detail is extremely fine; the image is crystal clear and quite beautiful. Whites are a bit on the hot side, but never so much that they intrude upon the picture.
Audio
As I said earlier, I really enjoyed John Murphy’s score. It sounds just as impressive as it did in theaters here, courtesy of an English DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 surround sound track mixed at 48kHz/24-bit. The electro-synth score booms with subsonic bass levels, bringing some very-welcomed life to the LFE track. The fully-immersive experience of watching the horrors on-screen while the pulse-pounding score drives the images is satisfying. Surrounds aren’t used to much of an extent since a good portion of the film takes place deep in the forest, so there isn’t much to fill things out. There are also French and Spanish DTS 5.1 surround sound tracks available. Subtitles are included for English for the hearing impaired, French and Spanish.
Extras
Surprisingly, since it did relatively well at the box office, “Last House” has been given a rather weak package on Blu-ray. We’re only given some deleted scenes, a featurette. The disc is D-BOX Motion Enabled for those who have a properly-equipped home theater, as well as some BD-Live content for those with web-enabled profile 2.0 players. I’ll tell ya, a commentary with Wes Craven and Dennis Iliadis would have been a nice addition to round this out. Shame they didn’t see fit to record one. DISC ONE: A reel of deleted scenes runs for 8 minutes and 50 seconds. They are (annoyingly enough) not available to watch separately and they (oddly enough) appear in the wrong aspect ratio of 2.35:1. “A Look Inside” is a featurette which runs for 2 minutes and 41 seconds. This is just a glorified EPK; it contains nothing of informative value. The voice-over interview clips allude to the fact that a longer, more substantial look at the production may have been produced. But, if it was, it ain’t here. Finally, the BD-Live link leads to the standard Universal home page where users can “share their favorite scenes with Buddies, watch the latest trailers, and more!” So, essentially what they’re saying is there’s nothing related to the film, only a plethora of promotional material for Universal. DISC TWO: This is a digital copy of the film.
Packaging
I know we got some slip-cover nerds in the house, don’t lie. Hell, I’m one of them. The disc comes packaged in a standard little Blu-ray case, but it does feature an embossed slipcover, though it only duplicates the cover art. Still, deep inside, you know you want it.
Overall
Last third of the film aside, the film isn’t entirely bad. It has some gorgeous cinematography and a well-written character in Mari. The problem mainly lies in the trio of baddies and the by-the-numbers third act. Still, it is better than a good deal of the horror films that have been released so far this year. Although I’m not sure how much that says. Probably best you rent it first.
|
|||||
|