ABSTRACT
Originally conceived by director Wes Craven and producer Sean Cunningham as nothing more than a pointed, low-budget experiment in bad taste, an “outrageous cinematic prank on a culture . . . reeling out of control in Vietnam,”1 The Last House on the Left (1972) plays out like a modern-day Brothers Grimm fairy tale for the hippie generation-a piece of folklore spiked with bad LSD. Commencing in the idyllic backwoods of rural Connecticut, the movie tracks two teenage hippie girls as they giddily make their way from the country to the city on a quest to attend a rock concert in New York City’s East Village. Looking to “score on some good grass,” the girls stray from the beaten path, only to encounter a band of degenerate criminals who proceed to abduct, torture, rape, and eventually, murder them in their own backyard. Seeking refuge, the killers inadvertently wind up at the home of one of the dead girls’ parents. After the parents discover what has happened to their daughter, they effectively carry out an elaborate but no less heinous revenge scenario. The film ends with each fugitive dead, and both parents bloodied and in shock.
