Last House on the Left - Remake (Spoilers)

[peggychristie]

All right. I rented the remake of LHoTL because Uncle Stevie told me to. And one of the nurses at a doc's office said it was pretty good (don't think she was old enough to have seen the original though).

While the acting in this remake is a-bazillion times better than the original, I don't think the rape scene was any more brutal, although it was pretty rough, nor was the stabbing of the one girl. Especially since she lived for a bit after it. *shudder*

I did have a couple problems at the end, though, when the parents kill the head bad guy. And tell me if I'm wrong here, any medical and mechanical specialists out there.

1. Keeping in the mind the dad is a doctor, he paralyzed the head bad guy from the neck down in order to hurt him anyway he pleased without resistance. HOWEVER - if the bad guy is paralyzed from the neck down, there's no way he could breathe or talk or ask questions, am I right? Because he did all three without the help of a ventilator.

2. The dad then put the bad guy's head in a microwave and cooked him with the door still open. Is that even possible? I know really old models worked with the door open but this one looked like it could only have been about 10 years old. Can you rig the door and still trick the oven to think it's closed, there by getting it to function? Let's not even talk about how the guy's head cooked and exploded in about 15 seconds. I can't even get a potato to cook that fast.

I also don't like that the daughter actually survived (because she didn't in the original, right?) or that the bad guy had a son who didn't like the criminal/murdering way of life and ended up helping the victimized family. Booo-ring.

Thoughts?

[MontiLee]

I honestly don't think you can spoil a remake unless you're dealing with people who've never seen the original, and who cares what they thinnk.

I haven't seen the remake simply because it just didn't interest me. For it's time LHotL was startling because of it's brutality, yet it manages to hold up, despite the "acting".

There is something inherantly wimpy about modern horror movies. People live to fight another day and there's always a happy ending (even with the spectre of a sequel). With chica living (where she died in the original), it tells me there just aren't enough balls to go around in Hollywood. They'll put on a scary mask to frighten the baby, but they still need the nightlight on so the closet boogeyman doesn't get them.

[peggychristie]

Yeah, a lot of people rag on the original because the acting was bad so they think the entire movie is worthless. But it was particularly brutal for its day and it was nice (right word for this movie?) to not hide the evil behind a hockey mask or William Shatner. These were three everyday people, albeit extremely nasty, that showed us the worst side of humanity. And the parents exacting revenge? There was no penis-biting-off scene in the remake. And that was the best revenge for a mother, don't you think??

[micah]

I have to add a couple of Amens to the two previous posts. The original was fantastically brutal. My default setting is to avoid remakes, although I do make the occasional exception. I knew going in that there was no way that corporate Hollywood could even come close to the source material so I avoided it. Why watch something watered down?

I seem to remember a documentary (one of the hundreds that get trotted out around Halloween) in which they mentioned that after the, ahem, scene in the woods, the actors couldn't even look at each other. They broke for a meal break and each went off and sat by him or herself.

When we can come close to matching that kind of impact, that kind on intensity, then I'll look forward to remakes. Until then, thankfully, there are the foreign film industries.

And to answer the questions...the open door debate has raged on the internets for ages. I have to agree with your potato comparison. Fifteen seconds isn't even long enough to warm my coffee in the morning. Plus, we can assume that dad would have gotten a healthy dose of radiation as well. Enough to cause skin burns/radiation poisoning/cancer/mutant super powers? I guess we will have to wait for the sequel to see.

I'm no expert, but I am pretty sure that you can paralyze the body and leave the respiratory system functioning. I would think, however, that this would prevent the baddie from feeling any pain, so what's the point of torture?

[peggychristie]

I was just watching "1000 Ways to Die" on Spike last night and some guy broke his neck when a window fell on it (long story short - peeping tom got caught). And the narrator said something about where the break occured - between two specific verterbrae - and that bundle of nerves in the spinal column control breathing.

So, OK - since the dad is a doctor in the movie I suppose he would know where to cut to allow the bad guy to breathe. And he would feel pain since only his head was in the microwave (also - as soon as dad hit the go button, he ran out of the immediate area).

Either way - the movie still sucked. WHY DO I STOP LISTENING TO MY INNER VOICE WHEN IT SCREAMS TO NOT WATCH ANY MORE REMAKES??

[thekarmasuitzya]

I hated this remake. I'm with Michael, I try to stay away from most remakes. I hate to say I liked the original "Last House" because it is a very brutal movie, but I admired it for what it showed about the human condition. These days, people seem more turned on by movies in which the victims get revenge. I would be interested to see what they would do with a remake of "I Spit on Your Grave".

[micah]

Jan 21, 2010 11:40:59 GMT -5 peggychristie said:

WHY DO I STOP LISTENING TO MY INNER VOICE WHEN IT SCREAMS TO NOT WATCH ANY MORE REMAKES??

Because you are an optimist. Because you get suckered in by the cool promos. Because you've seen so many bad remakes that the law of averages says that this new one can't possibly suck as hard as the last ten.

Hell, because people like Uncle Stevie told you to watch it.