The Last House on the Left

Compared to the slick, sick giddy amorality of other horror remakes like Friday the 13th and Prom Night, this update of the 1972 movie by the same name is simultaneously better and worse -- better in that it's superbly shot and wholly committed to an exploration of the moral and psychic cost of violence, and worse in that it depicts that violence in the most brutal terms imaginable. Director Dennis Iliadis knows exactly what he's doing, and the film has a painful sense of tension in the depiction of its very rough stuff.

When Emma and John decide to embark on their course of revenge, we're completely on board with them -- and completely terrified of what that decision may cost them. There aren't many glib, guilt-free moments of excitement here; every moment of violence is fraught with dread and grim brutality. And yet there's a humanity to The Last House on the Left -- a moral awareness and core -- that many other horror films lack. Like the brilliant Funny Games, The Last House on the Left is nearly impossible to like or enjoy, but it's hard not to admire and appreciate its vision, complexity, and willingness to be what it is.