Release Date: 3/13/09
Mari and her parents are taking a vacation at their home by the lake. They have a nice secluded area to relax and get away from their big city lifestyles. Meanwhile, a prisoner is being transported and is broken loose by his cronies. Mari meets up with her friend Paige and they meet a weird kid Justin who wants to smoke some pot with them. While they are hanging in his hotel room, the prisoner and his cronies come in who we find out are related to the kid. Mari and Paige are then kidnapped, brutalized, raped, and left for dead. A storm comes through and the group of baddies look for a place to stay. The only place is Mari’s parents’ house. They take refuge in the guest house. The parents have no idea who they are and they have no idea that these are Mari’s parents. So sets the scene of the movie. It’s a very graphic, brutal movie. Some of it is a bit hard to sit through. But it’s a very well done thriller with only a few cliché cheesy moments.
Krug (Garret Dillahunt) is the prisoner who was set free by his brother Francis (Aaron Paul), girlfriend Sadie (Riki Lindhome), and then his son Justin (Spencer Treat Clark) gets roped into their plot against his will. Krug really is a classic movie bastard. You genuinely hate the guy and his group of scumbags. The audience in the theater cheered and clapped anytime something bad happened to them. So the bad guys were definitely well built up character-wise. The family is not so much given the best back story. We know there was an older brother who died but that story never really turns into anything. Its just this lingering notion throughout the movie. The parents (Tony Goldwyn & Monica Potter) aren’t really in the movie much until about an hour into it. When each side realizes who the others are, all hell breaks loose. Mari (Sara Paxton) is the lead through the first half of the movie but then her character is very minor throughout the rest. I didn’t have a problem with any character in the movie really. They all served their purpose well.
The infamous rape scene that was in the original Wes Craven version of The Last House on the Left is again here in this new one and its hard to watch. I seriously cringed in my seat waiting for this scene to end and it felt like it was taking forever. The crowd was dead silent and someone even walked out of the theater. I don’t want to be the guy who says a rape worked well in a movie but it seriously makes you hate the bad guys even more which is a plus for the filmmaker Dennis Illiadis. There’s other fight scenes with a tack hammer and a garbage disposal that may make you turn your head in disgust. But if you’re a fan of horror thrillers then this movie does not disappoint. The movie could have been over and great but we’re then treated to a ridiculous moment right before the credits that I really could have done without. It actually ended on a terrible note because of that campy, gross out moment that Illiadis decided to throw in. But other than a few of those cheeseball moments, the movie was awesome. A serious horror thriller that I wish Friday the 13th would have been.
IMDB – N/A
Rotten Tomatoes – 44%
Movie Wiseguys – 7/10