“The Last House on the Left” Gratuitous Remake

Gratuitous Remake

“Hotshots” looks at a movie!

THE LAST HOUSE ON THE LEFT (2009) is a remake of Wes Craven’s 1972 film of the same name, which itself was a remake of THE VIRGIN SPRING, the 1960 film by the great Ingmar Bergman, and it proves once again that Hollywood has run out of ideas, as well as brings to mind the saying, “Leave well enough alone.”

It also brings to mind another saying: “Of all the movies I have seen so far this year, this is one of them.”

The film begins with a gruesome accident and then keeps getting worse all the way to the very final, gratuitous shot.

In fact, that is the best way to describe this sorry excuse for a movie: gratuitous. Here are just some of the notes I made watching it: “gratuitous assault,” “gratuitous rape,” “gratuitous violence,” “gratuitous (closeups of a) broken nose,” “gratuitous drowning in the sink and garbage disposal,” “gratuitous nudity,” “gratuitous destruction,” “gratuitous final shots, too,” and “one final gratuitous shot to the head.”

Yes, there is a story, but given what makes up most of the movie, you could very well say that the story is gratuitous to the violence.

The story is about a family staying at their vacation home on a lake.
As they are driving to it, they come to the road that leads to it, which is marked by a sign that says, “Lake Ends in the Road,” and the wife, Emma, remarks, “Gee, you think somebody would change that sign.”

The teenage daughter, Mari, borrows the car and drives into town to visit her friend, Paige, who is working in a convenience store.

A young boy named Justin comes into the store, and the three of them end up going to the motel where Justin is staying with his father, uncle, and another woman, who come back unexpectedly and interrupt the teenagers.

The group abducts Mari and Paige, and they all go out into the woods, where brutal things happen just as a bad storm moves in.

Mari manages to escape, but she gets shot.

Then as always happens in movies like this, the group shows up at the vacation home, where Mari’s mother and father are more than happy to accommodate them and put them up in the guest house.

THE LASTHOUSE ON THE LEFT is just a gratuitous remake.

I’m Dan Culberson and this is “Hotshots.”