“What would you do if it were your child?”
This new vision puts a slight shift on some of the plot details in the original as we meet a young girl named Mari (Sara Paxton), who arrives at a remote lakehouse with her friend Paige (Martha Maclaasc), only to be abducted by a crew of prison escapees. Mari and Paige are lured into the trap by a charming boy, a hooded pot smoking drifter named Justin (Spencer Treat Clark), who is actually the son of the lead killer Krug (Garret Dillahunt)… not exactly my idea of “charming.”
Krug and his acquaintances then proceed to eliminate the girls by taking them out into the woods and disposing of them, but in the midst of the struggle, one of the convicts is injured, and must seek medical attention from a physician named John (Tony Goldwyn), who lives in the last lake house on the left with his wife Emma (Monica Potter). Aside from the fact that Mari is still alive and wandering the woods in search of help, the ruthless killers have a much bigger surprise awaiting them as it becomes clear that John and Emma are in fact, Mari’s parents. What happens next will accumulate into some of the most terrifying sequences to hit the big screen in years as a couple of loving parents are forced to take action against a group of renegades who just happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. In this case, however, that’s just too bad.
Having come out nearly four decades ago, it’s easy to suggest that a lot of us may have forgotten Craven’s “The Last House,” but with a clearly modernized, more gruesome look that fits the new generation better, I must say that it is somewhat pleasuring to see a kind of torture in which the bad guys are the victims.
I must be fair and warn anyone who is curious about this movie that amidst all the bloody chaos, there is also a violently shocking rape scene that really pushes the envelope on just how far the MPAA can stretch the “restricted” rating. What little bit of content I find just too disturbing for film is probably the kind of stuff you wouldn’t even dare to pen in a screenplay, but after seeing this, it won’t be half as enduring to watch Charlize Theron get pushed over the line in “Monster,” or revisit Ned Beatty’s work in “Deliverance.”
While it’s usually a sign of failure for me, I honestly can’t venture to guess whether or not it would be “acceptable” for people to laugh at this horror film. But I am sure that those who pay to see it won’t have any problem asking themselves: “wouldn’t I have done the same thing if it were my child?” Of course, the primary focus of a movie like this is to terrorize and disturb the audience (which it does fairly well), but Wes Craven has always been known to accentuate his work beyond just the genre limitations, and in watching this movie, I found my brain jolting back and forth between utter shock and reasonable assumptions.
The average parent may not use such maniacal tactics as the ones here, but with a group of renowned killers in your house, a storm raging outside and no possibility of someone hearing the disturbance… I highly doubt that anyone would pick up something unless they intended to use it.
Posted by Colonnade Archives
on Mar 13 2009. Filed under Reviews.
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