The Last House On The Left (2009 Film)

The Last House On The Left (2009 Film)

The Last House on the Left is a 2009 American film directed by Dennis Iliadis and written by Carl Ellsworth and Adam Alleca. It is a remake of the 1972 film of the same name, and stars Monica Potter, Tony Goldwyn, Garret Dillahunt, and Sara Paxton. The film follows the parents (Goldwyn and Potter) of Mari Collingwood (Paxton), who attempt to get revenge on a group of strangers, led by a man named Krug (Dillahunt), that have taken shelter at their home during a thunderstorm. The Collingwoods discover that Krug and his group have raped and shot their daughter and left her for dead.

The film rights were picked up by Rogue Pictures in 2006, with the remake being the first film produced by Wes Craven's new production studio Midnight Pictures. Craven, who wrote and directed the 1972 original, was interested to see what kind of film could be produced on a large budget, as the limited funds in 1972 forced him to eliminate scenes he had wanted to film to tell a complete story. Alleca's original script included elements of the supernatural, which prompted the studio to reject it and bring in Ellsworth to perform a rewrite. One of the elements director Iliadis wanted to avoid with this film, given its graphic nature, was turning it into torture porn — a sub-genre of horror popularized by the Saw franchise. For Craven and Iliadis, The Last House on the Left primarily illustrates how even the most normal of families can be driven to evil acts if pushed too far.

The film was released on March 13, 2009, and took the top spot away from Watchmen with $5.6 million in weekend revenue. The Last House on the Left was met with mixed reviews from critics, with Dillahunt's performance often praised and the rape sequence criticized as being too realistic to handle. Audience opinion ranked the film at a "B" level, from a scale of "A to F"; the film would ultimately gross approximately $45 million worldwide.