The Last House on the Left is a 2009 rape and revenge film directed by Dennis Iliadis and written by Adam Alleca and Carl Ellsworth. A remake of the 1972 film of the same name, the film stars Tony Goldwyn, Monica Potter, Garret Dillahunt, Aaron Paul, Spencer Treat Clark, Riki Lindhome, Martha MacIsaac, and Sara Paxton. The film follows Mari Collingwood (Paxton) and her best friend Paige (MacIsaac), two teenagers who are abducted by a family of violent fugitives. After Paige is murdered and Mari is raped and left for dead, her parents, John (Goldwyn) and Emma (Potter), seek vengeance against the family, who have taken shelter at their summer home during a thunderstorm.
The original script by Alleca included elements of supernatural horror, which prompted the studio to reject it and bring in Ellsworth for rewrites. Craven, who wrote and directed the original film, was interested to see what kind of film could be made on a larger budget, as the limited funds forced him to remove scenes he had wanted to film to tell a complete story. One of the elements Iliadis wanted to avoid with the film, given its graphic nature, was turning it into "torture porn". For Craven and Iliadis, the film illustrates how even the most normal of families can be driven to commit evil acts if pushed too far. Although the film is set in an undisclosed town in the United States, principal photography began in Cape Town and Helderberg Nature Reserve in March 2008 and concluded in May.
The Last House on the Left was theatrically released in the United States on March 13, 2009, and was a box office success, grossing $46 million against its $15 million production budget. Despite this, film received mixed reviews from critics, with several deeming it worthy of praise in comparison to other horror films and remakes in general, while others considered it inferior to the original.
Plot
Krug Stillo, a notorious killer, is being transported to a max security prison. When he asks the transporting officers for a restroom break, the two refuse knowing he is a flight risk. While stopped at a railroad crossing, the two officers are viciously broadsided by a pickup truck driven by Krug's brother Francis, and the former's girlfriend Sadie. Sadie shoots one officer dead, and Krug wraps a seatbelt around the other officers neck which ultimately kills him. Both officers die at the scene, leaving the killers at large.
Dr. John Collingwood, his wife, Emma, and their teenage daughter, competitive swimmer Mari, head out on vacation to their lake house. Shortly thereafter, Mari borrows the family car and drives into town to spend time with her friend Paige. While Paige works the cash register at a local store, she and Mari meet Justin, a teenager passing through town, who invites them both back to his roadside motel room to smoke marijuana. While the three are hanging out in the motel room, Justin's family members return: his father Krug, his uncle Francis, and Krug's girlfriend Sadie, his stepmother.
Krug becomes angry at Justin for bringing unknown people to their motel room and shows him a local newspaper that has Krug and Sadie's pictures on the front page, which explains how Sadie and Francis broke Krug out of police custody and killed the two officers who were transporting him. Believing it would be too risky to let Paige and Mari go, the gang kidnaps them and uses their car to leave town. While Krug searches for the highway, Mari convinces him to take a road that leads to her parents' lake house; Mari then attempts to jump out of the vehicle, but the ensuing fight among the passengers causes Krug to crash into a tree totaling the vehicle.
Frustrated by Mari's attempt to escape, Sadie and Francis proceed to beat Mari and Paige as they crawl from the wreckage. Once Sadie begins to attack Mari, Paige hits Sadie in the stomach, knocking her off Mari and giving the girls a chance to escape their assailants. However, before Mari can run away, Krug grabs her and urges Sadie and Francis to get Paige. Paige runs through the woods, falls, and injures her leg. Upon doing so, she sees a construction site ahead and calls for help but is not heard over the loud noise of the machines. She is then captured by Sadie and Francis and taken back into the woods. When they arrive back in the woods where the rest of the group is, a now-tied-up Paige is placed on the ground. Krug then attempts to teach Justin to "be a man" by forcing him to touch Mari's breasts. Paige begins insulting him to get him to stop; in response, Krug and Francis fatally stab Paige repeatedly, and Mari watches her friend bleed to death. Krug, frustrated at Mari’s rebelliousness, proceeds to pin her face down to the ground and rape her. During the rape, Krug pulls off Mari's necklace and throws it away. When he is finished raping her, Mari musters enough strength to escape the group and make it to the lake so she can swim to safety. Krug shoots her in the back as she swims, leaving her body floating in the lake.
A storm forces Krug, Francis, Sadie, and Justin to seek refuge at a nearby house, owned by John and Emma. Justin soon discovers a photo of Mari and learns that John and Emma are her parents. John invites them to stay the night in their guest house, and Justin intentionally leaves Mari's necklace on the kitchen counter to alert them about their daughter. Meanwhile, Mari, critically wounded, manages to swim ashore and makes her way to her parents’ home, collapsing on the front porch. John and Emma discover Mari outside and the necklace on the counter. John examines her and discovers signs of rape and he and Emma realize that Mari's assailants are the people in their guest house.
As they try to find the key to their boat, so they can take Mari to the hospital, Francis enters the main house and discovers Mari alive. Emma and John attack Francis, killing him with a hammer. John and Emma enter the guest house while Krug and Sadie are sleeping. They find Justin holding Krug's gun, which he hands to John. Sadie awakens, and John shoots and wounds her in the neck, allowing Krug to escape through the window and into their house. Finding Francis dead, Krug realizes that they are Mari's parents. Sadie attacks John, then runs into the bathroom. John and Justin break in, and Sadie beats them with a shower curtain rod, almost knocking them out until Emma shoots and kills Sadie through her right eye. Krug hides and attacks John and Justin when they search for him. Krug has the upper hand on John, until Justin pulls a gun on Krug and pulls the trigger, only to be empty. Justin is stabbed by a enraged Krug, but with a combined effort from Emma and John, Krug is knocked unconscious. John, Emma, Mari, and Justin then leave in the boat for the hospital.
Later, John returns to the cabin, where he has paralyzed Krug from the neck down. John places Krug's head in a microwave jerry-rigged to operate even with the door open. As John walks away, Krug's head explodes from the scorching heat.
Cast
Tony Goldwyn as Dr. John Collingwood Monica Potter as Emma Collingwood Garret Dillahunt as Krug Stillo Aaron Paul as Francis Stillo Spencer Treat Clark as Justin Stillo Riki Lindhome as Sadie Martha MacIsaac as Paige Michael Bowen as Officer Morton Sara Paxton as Mari Collingwood Josh Coxx as Giles Usha Khan as Maid
Production Development In August 2006, Rogue Pictures finalized a deal to remake The Last House on the Left (1972) with original writer and director Wes Craven as a producer, while the company intended to preserve the storyline of the original film. In September 2006, it was announced that Craven had formed a production company, Midnight Pictures, under the umbrella of Rogue Pictures, and the remake for The Last House on the Left was selected as the company's first project.
One of the reasons Craven agreed to remake The Last House on the Left was because of the money involved. During production on the 1972 original, he did not have a large enough budget to shoot every piece of the story he wanted to tell, forcing him to remove several scenes from the original script. With the 2009 remake, a larger budget allowed the filmmakers to pace themselves more during filming and expand the scope of the story. One of the ways to accomplish this was for the producers to find a "rising young director to bring a new perspective for the story". According to the producers, who were impressed with his work on Hardcore (2004), director Dennis Iliadis was the person they were looking for. Co-producer Cody Zwieg stated, "Hardcore wasn't a genre or a horror film but showed completely believable characters in horrific, realistic situations. Many directors could handle the surface elements, the blood and shock moments of Last House, but Dennis proved that he could do it all without exploiting his characters and their situations." According to Iliadis, he "jumped at the chance" to remake The Last House on the Left, having already been a fan of Craven's and seen all of his films.
Writing "What would a typical family do in such an extreme scenario? [...] We're asking ourselves through it: 'How are they going to do this? How would we do it?' Then that poses the opportunity to really explore the extreme nature. In terms of Krug - these are evil human beings. Humans are capable of evil shit all the time, so it was a chance for me to get into the R-rated version of [these themes]."— Ellsworth on the film's primary themes.
An early draft written by Adam Alleca had moved the setting to California, and altered the third act to include elements of the supernatural. When that script was rejected, Carl Ellsworth was brought in to touch up the script by Alleca. Ellsworth had previously worked with Craven on Red Eye (2005), but had never seen the original film. After reading the script and watching the 1972 film, the latter he found difficult to watch due to its extreme nature, Ellsworth decided that the first thing that needed to be done was to establish someone whose survival the audience would want to root for. Ellsworth wanted to know how the "typical family" would react to such a heinous act being perpetrated on their daughter, and what they were truly capable of. According to Craven, most of the early script problems were based around deciding what elements to include, such as uncertainty with how much of the fugitive family needed to be seen or if Mari should live or die.
One of the changes that Ellsworth made was keeping Mari alive, as the character is found dead in the original film. Ellsworth believes keeping Mari alive when her parents find her adds to the suspense, because there is now a "ticking clock" for the parents to get their daughter to hospital. Another change to the character was making her a swimmer. Iliadis wanted to give Mari a "big character trait" that could be used as a coping mechanism for the character, as well as become an important component to her escaping Krug and his family. As Iliadis explains, "Well the idea was to find something where she channels all her energy and that was a big character trait because her brother is dead. It's like she's carrying him on her back. She needs to perform for two people now. She has to compensate for him so all her energy is in the water. The only area where she feels slightly free is when she's in the water swimming like crazy, so it's interesting having that as a character trait, and then having that as a key element for her trying to escape."