Horror Movie Review: Last House On The Left

Last House On The Left is a pretty standard grindhouse remake - the film looks more attractive but is less impactful and I never find myself caring about that poor girl or what line the family is crossing.  Like When A Stranger Calls, the thing that gives the original power is the thing that everybody knows about already, and that really dilutes any attempt to recapture its vengeful goodness.  The sort of horror represented by Last House only really works when it has two key elements: empathy and catharsis.  This has neither.  There’s a glimmer of a cathartic moment, when John appears in the kitchen, claw hammer in hand, and helps his battered, terrified wife to her feet, but it’s too short and the audience has to wait too long for the payoff that inevitably comes from it.  Which is in fact my problem with most of the second half of the movie.  It should be twenty minutes shorter.

But that’s not what I want to talk about today.

In the theater last night, there were no fewer than 3 children that I estimated to be under 12 years of age, sitting dutifully with their parents.  This bothered me immediately, but really, really bothered me once I heard a little girl audibly ask “why the man was doing that” during the rape scene.  Which means the parents let her watch that scene without covering her eyes or removing her from the theater.

Seriously.

Fuck. You.

Is the world so desensitized to its own ugliness that any parent can walk into a theater with a little girl and think “She can handle the R-rated slasher movie.  Screw Hotel For Dogs or The Jonas Brothers.”  If that is your only viable choice for seeing a movie with your elementary-aged child, stay home and call Child goddamn Services to come pick the kids up.  Then you can watch whatever you want, you callous shits.