Wes Craven’s 1972 feature The Last House on the Left has a permanent place in horror film history as one of the genre’s most notorious releases. Pushing the boundaries of gore and violence, this
brutal feature served as the filmmaker’s calling card as well as an entry into the industry for his co-producer, Sean
Cunningham, who would go on to give birth to the Friday the 13th franchise. With the recent spate of remakes of horror films from the ’70s, it was inevitable that Last House would be redone for the new millennium. With Craven and Cunningham on board as
producers, Greek director Dennis Iliadis has given their sordid tale a
high-gloss sheen that belies its gruesome content. Yeah, it’s good-looking torture porn, but torture porn nonetheless.
The premise of the film is a textbook example of narrative simplicity, as it
lays out every parent’s worst nightmare in a straightforward manner, bolstered by a Technicolor
splatter scheme. Two teenage girls, Mari and Paige (Sara Paxton and Martha
MacIsaac), run afoul of a dysfunctional family of psychopaths, whose sole
purpose seems to be to roam the countryside looking for innocent victims to
rape, torture and kill. Krug (Garrett Dillahunt), who’s just been sprung from custody by his brother Frank (Aaron Paul), girlfriend
Sadie (Riki Lindhome) and son Justin (Spencer Treat Clark), decides that since
the two girls have seen him, they must be dispatched. Taking them out into the
woods, they brutally abuse and kill the young women and, because of a car
accident, are forced to seek refuge at a nearby home. What they don’t realize is that their hosts, John and Emma Collingwood (Tony Goldwyn and
Monica Potter), are actually Mari’s parents. And when they discover what their guests have done, all bets are off
as they mete out their own brand of vengeance.
The story offers no surprises as it’s obvious that the Collingwoods will have their revenge and that the audience
will side with them. In fact, there were members of the audience I saw the film
with that cheered, laughed and clapped when one of the gang had his head
toasted in a microwave. These killers are painted in such a reprehensible light
that their violent death becomes a foregone and justified conclusion. It’s a manipulative piece of work that turns the table on the Collingwoods and the
audience, putting us in the killer’s shoes in an effort to show that we are not that far removed from their brand
of savagery. It’s a transparent, vile exercise that leaves everyone involved, the makers and the
viewers alike, feeling cheapened and debased. That it’s so well made only heightens its allure and increases its deceptive qualities.
That it is “only a movie” serves as some solace, though the fact the people will likely flock to it, is
far more disturbing than anything that could appear on the screen.
Is Miss March the worst film ever made? It’s a point to ponder. Sitting through it was surely the longest 90 minutes I’ve spent in a movie theater this year and caused me to wonder, as I suffered
through it, just how a piece of garbage such as this could be produced. Who in
their right mind could have given the green light to an offensive sex comedy
about a virgin who wakes from a four-year coma to find his ex is now a Playboy
playmate and sets out to reunite with her? Worse premises have been made into
decent films. However there’s a vileness to this project that would befoul even the best idea.
Someday I hope to be able to write a screenplay that contains a phrase as poetic
as “sweet turd cutter” to describe a woman’s rear end, is smart enough to include a sex scene gone awry due to an epileptic
woman having a seizure at an inopportune time and is classy enough to have
repeated scenes of a young man repeatedly soiling himself. Yeah, this is smart
stuff that’s not only devoid of talent but offensive towards women, who are portrayed as
nothing more than bimbos. One thing’s for sure, Miss March is the frontrunner for worst film of 2009.
This article appears in Mar 12-18, 2009.
