Back in 1972, director/producers Wes Craven and Sean S.
Cunningham kicked off their exploitation horror filmmaking careers with the
still shocking, raw and controversial rape revenge horror thriller The Last House on the Left. A loose reworking
(or ripoff depending on your point of view) of Ingmar Bergman’s 1960 shocker The
Virgin Spring, it told the tale of bandits who rape and murder a young girl
only to find themselves inside the home of the girl’s parents who enact bloody
vengeance on the unsuspecting killers.
Controversial for its graphic depiction of sexual assault followed by violent
vigilante retaliation of equally brutal measure, it was a portrait of ordinary
people forced to respond to a monstruous situation and thus become monsters
themselves.
--Andrew Kotwicki