Weekly Review -- Sweet retribution

The Last House on the Left (2009) -- Ah, remakes. Like their first cousin, the sequel, these films can also be borne of that fine line between ingenuity and mediocrity. Horror remakes in particular have been gaining in popularity over the past decade. Some of them, like The Ring and Dawn of the Dead, were very popular, due to the successful transposition of their themes; on the other hand, reworkings like The Fog and When a Stranger Calls were majestic flops, due to having successfully shlocked out all the details that had made the originals ominous. Thankfully, director Dennis Iliadis creates a smart and suspenseful thriller in the latest version of the ultimate vengeance story, bringing the right elements together and transforming others to deepen the context further.

While on holiday with her parents (Monica Potter and Tony Goldwyn), Mari (Sara Paxton) meets up with old friend Paige (Martha MacIsaac). Through a set of carelessly random circumstances, the girls are abducted by a trio of hardcore criminals, led by the psychotic Krug (Garret Dillahunt). After viciously assaulting Mari and Paige, the thugs seek shelter at a nearby house, not realizing that it belongs to the aforementioned parents, who then proceed to exact merciless revenge upon the attackers...

Having never seen Ingmar Bergman's The Virgin Spring, itself based on a Swedish ballad, I can only draw comparisons to Wes Craven's controversial 1972 cult piece, which is considered to be a direct ascendant of the Iliadis film in terms of contemporary sensibilities. The 1970s version was frantically bizarre and relentless in its juxtaposition of audio and visual sensations, all of which combined to create a truly frightening, wrong-place-at-the-wrong time cinematic experience, one that treated its acts of savagery with gusto that was already evident in the exploitative tagline. Still, seeing it once was sensory overload. The brutalities that seemed to pop up one after another, as though they were being picked off an assembly line, made me never want to see the remake when I heard that it was being produced. I can now say that I am certainly glad I gave it a chance, because the film deserves it. It does everything right when it comes to tweaking some of the narrative's aspects, fleshing out reluctant heroes we cheer for and villains due for comeuppance, as well as letting viewers become emotionally invested in the situations unfolding. I have not seen a more articulate re-imagining in years.

The changes that Iliadis and screenwriters Adam Alleca and Carl Ellsworth have made are welcome instead of being, as is so often the case, gratuitous and/or unnecessary. Not making the most violent scenes any more graphic than they are is a wise decision, simply because rape and murder is torture enough. Some characters' fates and backgrounds also differ here, which makes for more satisfying viewing; for example, creating a deceased sibling for Mari serves the purpose of raising the stakes for the family and heightening the distance that Mari's parents will go to protect her. Never forgetting the protagonists' motives or the bloodcurdling nature of their predicament, Iliadis refines the tale without ever glossing it over, visually or thematically.

The performances are impressive. Paxton, who I had previously seen in light, teen-geared material, gives an intense, heartbreaking portrayal of a victim who refuses to be one, while Potter and Goldwyn are credible as the shell-shocked parents. Dillahunt is terrific and terrifying as the time bomb that is Krug, while Aaron Paul startles as Krug's sleazily deranged brother and Riki Lindhome finds a well of aggressive, sexed-up insecurities playing Krug's girlfriend Sadie. 

The newest incarnation of The Last House on the Left is a shrewdly effective entry into the horror/thriller pantheon. A remake should enhance the main themes of the original while giving it a fresh perspective, and this is exactly what the filmmakers manage to achieve. The film accomplishes its goals through the usage of contextual and stylistic elements, without watering down the terror or sacrificing the violence for the sake of a PG-13 rating. If you are looking for a great genre movie, you just found it where the lake ends.

9/10