the Last House on the Left

There is a mode of thought that there are only so many stories in the world, and at some point everything is merely a variation on a familiar theme, and I do subscribe to this theory to some extent. As such, it is no surprise to me that certain movie plots seem to be copied time and time again. After all, with a limited number of stories the number of stories that are eligible for cinematization needs be just as limited, only smaller.

That being said, I don’t really think we ran out of permutations of a theme sometime in the mid to late nineties in such a way as to explain the ENORMOUS amount of re-makes, re-imaginings and other ways of saying re-hashes that are now plaguing the movie-theaters. It becomes practically impossible to spoil anything for the sheer fact that there is nothing playing where the story is not known up front and in many cases has been known up front for the last twenty odd years.

In a way, the new version of tLHotL avoids the rather disappointing effect of being spoiled by never really being spoilable. After all, a spoiler suggests that the ending is unexpected, surprising, something you would not have seen coming if somebody had not just spoiled the movie for you. tLHotL not so, there is no surprise, no twists and turns within the tale, everything made starkly clear, and unpleasantly clear, from start to finish. In its own way, it is not even a thriller, for exactly that reason, and I am not even considering placing it in the “horror” category. Horror, after all, needs a supernatural (or nearly so) element, and thrillers need tension and excitement. This movie has no supernatural element (the Norwegian tale does, but not in the main part of the story) and as said no thrills. I would call this movie simply a “drama”, if not with the melancholy or sad connotations the word holds nowadays.

TLHotL, this time, is a re-make of a movie that was a re-imagining of another movie that was a re-telling of a traditional Scandinavian folktale, and with so many “re”s it is not surprising it lost some of the old tale along the way. What is surprising is how much it has lost since the relatively recent firs tLHotL. The original (for want of a better word) is no more exciting or surprising than this one, but is more uncomfortable, which in a movie like this counts.

The story, very swiftly (as so many old tales this one also can be synopsed incredibly swiftly) is: “Parents kill the people who raped and killed their daughter”. The story is told in simple (near) chronological order, starting with the presentation of the criminals, then the parents + daughter. After this murder, rape and some murder, and then more murder. It’s gory (although less so than the Craven original version) and unpleasant (see last line within brackets) but that is the (natch) meat and bone of the movie.

What I liked about Craven’s original was the fact that it made the viewer complicit in the horrible acts portrayed. What I hate about the current one is that it absolves the viewer from any responsibility towards the situation. In the original a horrible, almost five minute long, shot of a brutal rape that seems to go on for much longer and never relents makes you uncomfortable, makes you wish the camera would pan out, show something else, anything but this poor girl being abused. But it does not, and you feel as much a part of the scene as she. But as you are looking AT her you feel slightly, if subtly, that you are part of the group that allows this to happen to her, you have a responsibility, and somehow, you feel as though you could stop this, but don’t. The new version does pan out, showing trees and other people and more importantly, it only lasts a very short time. And this time, the viewer is placed outside the scene, and thus not really responsible, you care, somewhat, but not really, as the camera seems to care, somewhat, but not really.

When, in the original, the parents find the corpse of their daughter (I won’t spoil how, it is also not important) the decision “right, they raped and killed my little girl, I’m gonna be bitin’ me off some peen” is made willingly, swiftly and decisively. As I imagine mine would be. If I ever find out somebody killed my child that person is dead, never mind that they seem to currently be breathing, they might as well not be. The parents put all their love and caring they used to feel for their daughter into destroying, knowingly, other lives. Does it make them nicer people? No. Does it make them relatable? Yes. The switch in their characters is done so expertly you feel that this killer instinct was always there, just barely kept under the surface for the sake of their child. Their energy could have gone dark as easily as it went light. Symbolically this places the child as the cap on their rage, the one thing that stops these people from turning into murderous beasts.

In the new version, the parents are unpleasant, yes, but form first view about as menacing as a disgruntled bedbug. They seem to be unpleasant to each other, the dad is unpleasant to his daughter and the mother is mostly unpleasant to herself, by staying with these horrid people. The daughter never gets a chance to represent the key to their happiness as there simply is no happiness. When she is inevitably attacked and thus taken out of the equation of this family’s life, the rage is no turning point, no corruption form light to dark; it simply makes the last final step from grubby to foul.

I enjoyed the new tLHotL, unlike the friends I was with, but I did think changes were made that changed the message and the impact of the story. A lot of the “comic relief” bumbling policemen and the like were taken out where they really, really should have stayed in the movie. In the original, at several points, the story could have still been saved but wasn’t because people decided not to take the turn, not to check out the car, not to do this or that, and as a viewer, you get tense because everything could have turned out ok, if not for that small step. The new version does not have that, and unavoidably moves towards the finish. And an unavoidable fate is not an interesting fate.

The last and final point of chance that really did chance so much for me in this movie centers on redemption and escape. In the original, the parents meet up after their rampage, covered in blood, in the living room of their home. They end the story still in the story; they have already begun haunting the place of their crimes. There is no redemption for anybody, as nobody physically leaves the scene of the crime. Also, with their daughter dead and summarily avenged, what do they have to live for? You feel, if not know, that they are ready for a hell of their own making, no more love, or light, but no willingness or need for hate and darkness. A grey eternity rehashing their actions while sitting in that living room, in those clothes, close to their victims memories.
The redemption they sought, the peace they hoped to find is not, and will not be, there. They are punished for their violence, however understandable within the context of their actions, as they are judged by the same standards they have judged by.

In the new version, not only does the daughter live, she is also instrumental in her own and her parent’s survival (alerting them to the danger under their roof). The final scene of this movie has the parent’s, along with their daughter (and for reasons explainable one of the members of the criminal group) in a boat speeding towards help. They leave the place of dark to go into the dawn. They are by their actions or character redeemed. The family is stronger than ever, the daughter has found a new assertiveness along her mother, and the junior criminal looks towards no live of crime. Even better, he fills a void that was left by some unneeded and unexplained back-story death.

Completeness through adversity, strength through resistance and redemption through action are NOT tenets of this story, they are NOT heartwarming messages to take away. The original, as does the original tale, tell that revenge does NOT fulfill, that it does NOT make everything a little bit better, it just makes things worse. With the redemption of the family we condone violence; we say “given the situation you acted right” where they really did not. Remember that the daughter lived, and that therefore the cap was never off the rage, the energy that was put into lighting her life never needed to be turned towards avenging that same life. It makes all the actions unreasonable and the redemption and escape undeserved. It completely turns around the message of the story, and in doing so, negates the impact to such an extent that it makes the movie less “worth it” less debatable, less a topic for discussion (how would YOU act?) and more a standard (or sub-standard) exercise in gore.