Directed by Howard Hanks
Written by: William Faulkner, Leigh Brackett, Jules Furthmann, based on the book The Big Sleep by Raymond Chandler
Cast: Humphrey Bogart, Lauren Bacall, John Ridgely, Martha Vickers,
Photography: Sid Hickox
Music: Max Steiner

114′, B/W, U.S.A, 1946

Heartbreak Score:

Where to get it:

My DVD copy is the european one, even the menus are in english – odd for a Portuguese branded cover. No extras, but you get the film at a cheaper price, since there are no other versions. Get it:

More Screenshots:

Written and Directed by Zach Weintraub
Photography by Nandan Rao
Cast: Mackinley Robinson, Zach Weintraub, Julia McAlee
B/W, U.S.A, 2010

Official Website

Few movie directors can be proud of achieving realism and artistic perfection. Zach Weintraub does this in his first feature. Shot on a ridicule budget and using a single DSLR camera that is perfectly balanced by Nandan Rao’s perfect black and white photography and using pretty much no written dialogue, Bummer Summer is a delicate surprise, one that uses it’s handicap to produce a beautiful cinematic experience while telling a simple story that reflects nowadays youth much more than any other stylized or big budget film.

This is the story of two brothers during the big summer vacations, in a town where nothing much is happening. There are no adults in the film. Isaac is the younger brother and happy with his girlfriend. His brother Ben returns home after graduation and the two go out for a folk concert where the singer catches Isaac’s attention. She’s an ex-girlfriend of his brother, Lila, and the meeting of the two former lovers might spark a little flame. They plan on a road trip and invite Isaac to come but he feels obligated to stay with his girlfriend. But of course that he changes his mind, caught in both a spell of attraction and idea of getting away from the boredom. He breaks up with his girl and meets the two, embarking in a road trip to see the world’s largest maze.

Simply, Bummer Summer can be played as a road trip film, but it’s quite more complex than that, since the relationships between the older and younger brothers change during its course, the apathy of a long boring summer portrayed in the simple sighs of being young and having everything and nothing to do.

Instead of just filming space and time, like most realist features that wait for the perfect moment to be caught, Weintraub and Rao create the situations that make the story by playing the movie like they’re playing their lives. Although this is not necessarily felt in the film, as in a stylized documentary – it’s the complete oposite, Bummer Summer captures the eternal dirty innocence of youth as a new-retro style of making films: using the inexistent production and gear to its advantage.

It’s a difficult task to achieve this level of naive perfection, naive in a sense that there are no artifices here, even if the photography is so breathtakingly gorgeous. The soft love triangle plays clumsily in the two brother’s cluelessness, their motivations are uncertain yet they know what they seek: an escape. In this sense, Lila is the ticket they need, she plays her game unknowingly and detaches herself from any feelings.

But the two brothers aren’t sure either. They make no advances nor they exact their feelings, if there are any, there are no conflicts besides the utmost problem that makes the youngsters embark on a journey to the unknown: any place is better than home.

This film was screened off-competition on IndieLisboa’s 2011 edition. There are no DVD versions but you can check the film’s website and facebook page to catch up and make inquiries. But do inquire, this is a hidden gem that, with the right amount of praise, will become a cult favourite. Beautiful!

Screens courtesy of Bummer Summer’s facebook page

Original Title: Schastye moe
Written and Directed by Sergei Loznitsa
Cast: Vlad Ivanov, Viktor Nemets, Olga Shuvalova
Colour, 127 min.
Ukraine, 2010

iMdb | Wikipedia

Director Sergei Loznitsa’s first fiction is a deep journey through the alienation and Soviet remains on the remote population around Russia’s deepest villages. It’s also a journey of a man, Georgy, that gets lost in his cargo truck deep into the wilderness unable to find his way, just like the characters that he encounters, filled with desperate and starving violence and psyche. Using dark humour or strict and unemotional real-life situations, Loznitsa manages to build a powerful document of horrible beauty, in a sense, it’s a documentary that he cannot document, that’s why it’s fiction. As he puts, “Everything we see in the film, happened in the film, and everything that happened in real life did not happen in the film.”, responding to my question about what’s indeed real about My Joy.

The director’s approach to narrative is reminiscent of the Soviet film school, after all he attended the prestigious Gerasimov Film School, the oldest film school in the world, where masters like Tarkovsky, Eisenstein or Sukorov developed their craft; here is a filmmaker experimenting with the raw episodes and depth of everyday characters filled with different quirks, and here is also a filmmaker with a strong sense of narrative cinematography, using his experience as a documentarian. This experience provides us with such over-the-top sequences, notable for their expert craft as well as for their extreme boldness.

It’s Loznitsa’s dance, and we are the receptacles of his obsession, as the violent nature of the characters and situations are played to full realism without loosing their fictional appeal, and that’s one of the quirks of My Joy, the director’s ability to pull in and out of conventions to create his own, without providing a clue; it is not his purpose to create beauty but to confine chaos.

One that watches My Joy for a conventional narrative will be deeply perturbed, for life, because Loznitsa abandons his main character, focuses on other aspects of the same pathos, given to us in different episodes, perhaps of different timelines, and even manages a unique feat: to create empathy for characters we’ve only met 5 seconds ago. It’s not just about the pure realism that the film contains, or the violence that, as Loznitsa tells, is not as bad as the real deal. But it doesnt even matter. It couldn’t be a documentary. It can’t even be fiction, it’s the director’s choice.

My Joy revolves your perception by being hauntingly difficult, Loznitsa can be proud of his achievement, few directors can create such a barrier between the film and the audience and create an empathic response in the process, it certainly can be a way of the Russian film school but in Loznitsa’s case it’s a style that is clearly developing and we can only be amazed and truly fornicated by this wild, bold and violently beautiful film. Not for everyone, it’s a tough chew, and a proud one. And when it makes you laugh with the bizarre situations and dialog, it’s a dark laugh, one laugh per each drop of blood that will coagulate after each thump in the head you hear in the film. And there is no soundtrack, this is not entertainment, this is Cinema.

Heartbreak Score:

The film is not yet available on DVD.

This film was screened as part of a special retrospective dedicated to Sergei Loznitsa in Lisbon, courtesy of Zero em Comportamento, wich also conceded me an interview, wich I made for the urban online magazine Rua de Baixo.

Images courtesy of Loznitsa’s website, promotional shoots.

Directed by Charles Laughton
Written by James Agee, Based on the book The Night of the Hunter by Davis Grubb
Cast: Robert Mitchum, Shelley Winters, Lillian Gish

B&W, 93 Min
USA 1955

iMDB | AllMovie | Wikipedia

Taken from the romance of the same name based on the true story of the Harry Powel, a preacher who killed 25 women upon marrying them, this avant thriller was way ahead of its time, even today. The only directing effort from the actor Charles Laughton, this is a phenomenal exercise in style and narrative, one true classic that inspired many and is as frightening today and breathtaking as it was 60 years ago.

There is nothing like this in the classic hollywood period, a bold and precise cinematography that is a direct result of the noir period that uses German Expressionism as a reference to build truly breathtaking angles, lightning and scenery, built upon the dark and profoundly astounding character of Harry Powell played by Robert Mitchum. Stanley Cortez is the man behind the cinematic power and every scene, every plan is simply perfect. It is, nonetheless, a classic period movie, filled with the yin and yang of the dramatic narrative of the 40s and 50s, good vs evil, god vs satan, and these parts are balanced by a smart script that builds the tension maniacally then slows the pace to absorb the darkness only to carefully open the doors of mayhem to breathe joy in the last scenes.

If not only for the script, for the characters then, beautifully photographed, from the psychopath priest whose right knuckles are tattooed LOVE and the left ones HATE, to the children that play their parts so convincingly you’d think you’re watching a documentary. The setting is the depression era 30s, in a small town by the river, and this atmosphere is built using not only strong characters but also angled by the precise and beautiful cinematography.

The story is relatively simple but told in a careful fold, a husband returns home with a gun in his hand and ten thousand dollars in his pocket, after robbing a bank and killing two men. The cops are coming for him and he has only time to say goodbye to his children and give them the bounty, making them swear they never reveal where it is hidden, not even to their naive mom. Sentenced to death by hanging, he spends his final days in a cell with Powells, who was committed to 30 days of jail for stealing a car. What a joyful coincidence, the psychopath thinks, just what he needed: a widow with 10 grant in her will. Of course that he tracks her and marries the poor soul and tries to makes his way into the children, after perceiving that they are the ones who know where the treasure is hidden while managing to capture the charms of the local folks who believe in his word of God.

He eventually kills his new wife, making it an accident, and the children have to escape using a boat that belonged to their father. The river seems haunted, as their fate, the light is superb and this middle segment of the story is one of the most memorable scenes of the entire post-war hollywood cinema.

What’s most intriguing about this early thriller is that it has no direct consequence on the cinema of its era; even noir wasn’t this troubled and grim, and we’re talking of a segment of north american history where the restrictions imposed by the Code were strict. More, this movie was almost forgot by the time it was released, only to find its way as a cult status many years after. This is an absolute classic, have no doubt, its narrative as tight as never before, the pacing and plot structured to serve the absolute purpose of the story and atmosphere, something that European cinema explored many years before, and the cinematography takes the German Expressionism and even a glimpse of realism, a trend that was becoming true in Italy and that gave way to the new waves of the 60s. Remarkable, scary, tense and just plain beautiful, The Night of the Hunter is a hell of a movie, one that not only every cinema enthusiast should see but every human being that loves a good story told in a perfect, flawless form.

Heartbreak Score:

(absolute classic)

Where to get it:

Amazon uk: The Night Of The Hunter [DVD] [1955]

Unfortunately it’s just the regular movie-only edition, no documentary or anything, but if you’re in Europe and can’t wait for the new Criterion Collection edition, this is it. Let’s wait for Criterion to release a proper version. Meanwhile, this is the only and therefore best edition you can get.

Update: Criterion will release a proper DVD Edition of this superb film this November. Read it all here.

There was a documentary made from leftovers of the movie that were found, read more at the wikipedia entry for the film.

More Screenshots:

Directed by Nicholas Ray
Written by Charles Schnee, based on the book “Thieves Like Us”, Edward Anderson
Cast: Cathy O’Donnell, Farley Granger, Howard da Silva, Jay C. Flippen

Runtime: 95min
USA, 1949

iMDB | AllMovie | Wikipedia

The first feature from one of the romantics of the classic American Cinema, Nicholas Ray, is a human crime drama noir driven by strong leads and classic heartfelt dialogue, delivered in a tight narrative and superb low-light cinematography. A dramatic film noir example that is an absolute classic.

Three convicts escape prison and refugee on a friendly cabin, planning their next assault. Bowie, the youngest of the three (and the soft hearted one), never knew much of love but soon understands it when he meets Keechie, the niece of one of the convicts. Like him, she never knew much about love or kissing, having lived all of her life in an isolated village. The three convicts conduct one more robbery and our Bowie is radiant with his share of the loot; he believes that he can hire an attorney to help him free his conviction. The couple then flees to an isolated region, hoping that they can find piece in love, but the past and the most certain future for Bowie shapes their fatal destiny.

Much more than the typical ‘romance in the dark’ or ‘lovers in sin’ kind of film, They Live by Night is very cautious on the approach to the subject, never failing to give up atmosphere in favor of a pastiche drama. It is tight, and it’s dialogue is incredibly smart. The two lead performances are true classic hollywood – at their best, and the director carefully crafts the scenes in the most human way possible. When the couple is having an argument, for instances, the out-of-focus is used to give importance to the other partner’s reaction, or the character’s intense gloom, never putting any star in relevance. This is also fantastic in the robbery scene, all shot inside the car where our Bowie awaits the return of the two mates. This quick segment is augmented with a tension that elevates the plot to a different, deeper level.

Even in the earliest scenes, when the main characters are introduced, every piece of the action is so carefully rehearsed that makes this film carved in stone, a true classic. Not without its gloomy noir athmosphere, this is no artificial drama. There is real darkness here, the low-light and the despair in the characters eyes, in a poetic sense but also a poetry that is never too overrated, the story itself with its inevitable feeling of a bad ending hanging in every corner, the claustrophobic environments that give us the best feeling of a couple-on-the-run.

And the night. Bowie and Keechie always travel by night to avoid unwanted attention. The darkness is also part of the lover’s relation. But this is no light-paced narrative, not at all. There are twists and turns, there is always something pushing the story forward, much like a good book.

Uncompromisingly, this is an absolute must for every classic hollywood lover or for all the film noir freaks out there, and it will absolutely stay with you long after you watch it.

Heartbreak Score:

Where to Get it:

My DVD edition is a Portugese one, and it features another Nicholas Ray feature: On Dangerous Ground. There is no official European release, except for the Spanish one, neither a single-packaged edition of the film. There is this version that also features another classic, Side Street, from Anthony Mann. Both are great, and feature the same lead characters. Another chance to see the beautiful Cathy O’Donnell.

You can always go back to the Heartbreak Souvenirs Store for all the good stuff.

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Written and Directed by: Richard Stanley
Music by: Simon Boswell
Cast: Stacey Travis, Dylan McDermott, John Lynch and Iggy Pop
Runtime: 94 min
UK, USA, 1990

iMDb | Allmovie

No Flesh Shall Be Spared

Once in a while you find a movie that almost nobody heard of and while watching it you realize: what a shame. Hardware is one of those atmospheric beauties that strongly defines itself in a careful Cyberpunk esthetic, almost hard-core; it’s story-line spawning a direct and hopeless vision of the most possible future we will encounter.

It’s also heavily influenced by two movies that, although not entirely dissociated from themselves, are also key-marks not only of the Cyberpunk genre but of the whole 80s science fiction Cinema: Blade Runner and Terminator. Hardware depicts the heavy technological dependency and distopia pertaining in books like Neuromancer, mixes it with the romantic noir of Blade Runner and blends the quick pace and looks of Terminator. It’s a strong visual impact that is also the most beautiful thing about this movie: the visuals  are carefully constructed, the plot is not.

This Earth is an apocalyptic one, Humans made everything they could to destroy the ecological balance, radiation is everywhere. New York is a junk town and the wasteland surrounding it is a no-man’s land. The strong ecological impact made people retreat to their homes in the remaining cities where they have the technology to survive and the loneliness to achieve it. There are some hunters, called Zone Trippers, that go into the wastes searching for scraps of metal or ancient bots to sell on the black market for a few credits. Our main guy returns from a long absence in the wastes with a bit of metal to sell. While in the black market shop, a strange man emerges with a suposedely destroyed robot and sells it to our man; it’s Christmas eve and he thinks it’s a good gift for his girlfriend. She loves this weird pile of metal and uses the robot’s head as an ornament for a statue she is building. But of course that this robot, aka M.A.R.K. 13, is not really dead, it turns itself on as soon as she is alone in her dark and gloomy apartment.

The movie is a giant chase scene that is not very well executed and has it’s fair amount plot holes and bits that don’t fit, but the atmosphere and setting are enough to keep with the bad pacing. The visuals are extreme, and the questions it raises are well beyond a single viewing. As Jason Buchanan writes in its All Movie review, Hardware establishes a doomed future where mankind has already marked its final days of doom by destroying the ecological balance, the world is too fucked up. In fact, the whole movie presents an Earth that is near its end but it never does, there is always some sort of escape, just like our contemporary world. Catastrophes come and go and it seems that there is always a way to survive, the end is not entirely bad. The robot in Hardware is a killing machine with a flaw; that’s why it was found in the wasteland, but in the end we know that it’s going to be mass produced. Cannabis is legalized in this dystopian future, as a means for one to legally evade the mess of the everyday reality. Houses are securely tight with video surveillance and multi-level locks, but a neighbor can easily spy on you.

These details make the world in Hardware a real one, and that’s more than half the movie. It creeps you out and makes you wonder, and that pays off the clumsy script and incoherence of some scenes. It’s also one of the most Cyberpunk movies you’ll ever encounter, complete with electronic body modifications and apocalyptic doom. Catch it if you’re up for some psychological thriller noir with gorgeous visuals and a kick-ass redhead that gives this movie one more beautiful colour.

Where to get it:

DVD-wise, the Red edition is the one to get. Amazon helps you. You can get the Blu Ray edition that just come out with superb picture quality, if you already have succumbed to the Blu-Ray.

The Soundtrack:

Here’s a link to get the great soundtrack from Simon Boswell. There is no edition available, as it has gone out of print so here’s to you dearly, to revive the movie and to listen to Iggy Pop as a great radio entertainer.

Thanks to Cyberpunk Review for the tip and the soundtrack link

More Screenshots

It’s sad when the good stuff have to end. Uk’s Electric Sheep Magazine has been running on print for 9 issues, struggling but surviving. But now is no more. Winter was it’s last issue.

Electric Sheep is also a website, but the magazine, with its carefully selected themes and focusing on a more deviant view of cinema (see, the real inspiration for Heartbreak Motel), was a god’s present. Each issue was filled with great essays and interviews on the films that matter. It’s only problem was it’s size: you could read it all in a couple of hours, but you would be back for them..

Now, Electric Sheep was unique. It will be terribly missed. I’m so sad I only got to it’s final year of life, but I’ll scavange the world looking for the lost issues. It’s just too sad. Thanks to Electric Sheep for being the only alternative to the cinema press.

Meanwhile, you have to check their website for up-to-date deviant cinema stuff. And Heartbreak Motel as well.

Original Title: Môju
Directed by Yasuzu Masumura
Written by Yoshio Shirasaka (based on the story by Rampo Edogawa)
Cast: Eiji Funakoshi, Mako Midori and Noriko Sengoku.
Runtime: 90 min.
Japan, 1969

Here’s a curious little pleasure from a japanese cult master. An intense study on body, intimacy and lunacy all together in a very light S&M form that never takes itself too seriously; it’s deep alright but it’s more poetic than barbarian.

Michio is a blind sculptor that intends to create his utter masterpiece, a sculpture piece for the blind. Helped by his mother he kidnaps a beautiful model, Aki, in an attempt of keeping her locked in his studio to serve as his muse.

Aki is a very spoiled girl and tries everything to escape but in the end the couple bond in a very carnal way, in an intense and obsessive relation that culminates with the total embrace of body and soul.

The wharehouse that serves as the studio is decorated with oversized female body parts, breasts, legs and the whole, and in the middle (where most of the action takes part) are two huge headless female sculptures. This only adds to the perfect claustrophobic atmosphere that the movie emanates. Beautiful!

This is truly a pure low budget underdog. More than a mere example or exercise, Blind Beast is carefully mastered, even if sometimes things get a little too silly to be true as the dialogs are too deep and too poetic for a casual viewer. You can reach a boiling point where you just want to watch the plot and shut up the two leading characters but this only adds to the strangeness of the whole thing and can become quite enjoyable.

Masumura never uses any kind of close ups, except in some minor details of the beautiful artist’s studio, it’s quite engaging to see this intimate tale told in a cold and detached form, at least on the surface because the characters are too intense and the tight studio where most of the movie is set creates a bizarre claustrophobic sense of pleasure. The viewer is personified in the model Aki – the only one who’s not insane (at least in the beggining) and you get along the movie like Aki does – trying to get away from this nightmare first by force, then by using psychological treaths, then slowly beggining to realise its fate and resiging and giving up to pleasure.

But it’s more than pleasure, take note. It’s way deeper than that as Aki starts to get fondness for the emotionally weak Micho she too begins to love him in a twisted way – like he does to her. It’s a kind of metaphor for the deranged relationships of our time.

The actors, specially Shirasaka (who plays the blind beast) give outstanding performances, carefully angled by truly beautiful shots. It’s poetry in motion.

This movie was made in 1969, and it shows; the avant-garde experiments in colour and form are what make this utterly enjoyable, even if the story tends to become too insane for most, and the last half of the film tends to develop slowly but it’s an intense experience that shall not be ignored by those seeking desperate and intense feelings. And, on a side note, this is a sexual story told without a hint of sex or nudity. Remarkable. And still remains fresh nowadays.

Heartbreak Score:

Crash

Written and Directed by David Cronenberg.
Cast: James Spader, Holly Hunter, Elias Koteas, Deborah Kara Unger, Rosana Arquette, Peter MacNeill.
Music Composed and Performed by Howard Shore.
Runtime: 98min.
Canada, 1996

Allmovie | IMDb | Wikipedia

This obsessive adaptation of J.G. Ballard’s novel turns into a hard psychological affair of sexual compulsion and hardcore demency when a group of emotionally detached individuals find pleasure, sex and escape in car accidents.

A truly weird film about the deepness of our modern world’s perversion, a deranged visual experience that puts your head in an exhausting twist.

Commonly, for most of us human beings, a car accident fuels our desire for voyeurism in a twisted way. It’s something behind our control, we need to watch. Ballard’s novel relates sex with technology written in a cold, detached way. Cronenberg’s movie is no different. Right from the start he puts you in the main role – you, as the voyeur, as the eyes that fuel every emotion; the technology and the characters as mere pawns in the twisted world of wreckage.

Filmed as an almost diabolical nightmare, there is no certainty of time, days become night almost vaguely, the characters are almost pathetically empty – yet, deeply disturbed, deeply rooted into their intense fetishism. More than a mere visual journey, it twists your brain as if you were in a permanent car crash.

Here, the crash is just a mere metaphor for our consumerism, for our detachment of emotions. We root in objects, in technology. Here the sex is the extreme personification of our evilness, of our constant pursue of the next object to attach.

This wonderful and heavy disturbed film is such a weird experience, yet so violently real that you become glued to its visual dementia. It’s almost as if the plot advances with no sensation of time or place, and the only real thing to hold on is the exact same love the characters embrace. Gorgeously shot in deep blues and whites, a gorgeous disturbing soundtrack by Howard Shore, intense sexual intercourse and a great cast of actors, just brilliantly off-beat.

But because the plot advances in a dreamlike state and the characters appear out of the blue like dead bodies and stay like that in a trance for the entirity of the film, because the atmosphere is deeper than the actual notion of conflict-resolution, because the soundtrack is shrieking, Crash is almost a bad movie, one of those you hate for life, because it is so true, so intense. This is, truly, a heavy movie, not for every taste.

Most fans of Cronenberg that grew up with his dark low budget fantasies about body modifications and paranoia in the 80s seem to be put of by Crash, as if this is one of the less serious of the “serious period” of the master craftsman. But in my opinion Crash suits the filmmaker’s vision as good as any other bizarre film he made: the twisted characters and the wrecked cars and Arquette’s body. The eeriness that shivers your perceptions is pure Cronenberg.

Yet, if you feel compelled and secure of your own dilemmas, watch it and you’ll never see a car accident with the same eyes. I’m having difficulties getting in a car at night without visualizing Elias Koteas character Vaughan coming up the other side of the lane.

Painful, but just plain gorgeous for those who don’t fear giving up their secrets and embrace their darkest sexual deviance.

Buy this DVD from Amazon:
Crash (Uncut) [1997] [DVD]

Heartbreak Score:

More Screenshots:

The Last House on the Left
Written and Directed by Wes Craven, 1972
Cast: Sandra Cassel, Lucy Grantham, David Hess, Fred J. Lincoln, Jeramie Rain, March Sheffler, Gaylord St. James, Cynthia Carr, Ada Washington.
Music Composed and Performed by David Hess.
Runtime: 91min.
USA

Allmovie | IMDb | Wikipedia

Ah, this one is a pure classic. Nailed down upon its release, brutal, demented, and psychologically disturbing yet amusing, this one will shame you for watching with a smile in your face. Krug & company are for a feast and two “innocent” beauties are not escaping their fate. Now that the remake is hitting the box-office, it’s time for the real deal, a true disturbing classic.

For his first feature, director Wes “Slasher” Craven delivers us a sadistic tale of brutality, murder, revenge and the psychological effects of dementia. Mari is spending her 17th birthday in town for a concert and brings her good friend Phillys wit her. The pair encounter four escaped convicts leaded by Krug (played by David Hess) that take the two innocent girls into the woods to brutally murder them in a series of mind-twisting fatalities that culminate with a demented revenge courtesy of Mari’s parents.

The film’s sadistic tone is counter measured by its comical characters and situations, punctuated by happy music in sad moments, completely (and purposely) out of sync. This gives this classic slasher an even more cynical feel. The characters, specifically the four drugged psycho killers, are completely insane no-brainers, amateurishly crafted but beautifully portrayed by the cast (that’s the appeal of low-budget classics). Every other character in the film borderlines the limits of impossibility – from the two ex-hippie parents to the two comical policeman, who do absolutely nothing to capture the escaped convicts or prevent the brutal consequences of the finale. This one is sure to give you some memorable dialog quotes.

The soundtrack, courtesy of Mr David Hess himself, is absolutely stunning. From the gorgeous opening credits song (also used in another later film, Cabin Fever), to the interludes that choreograph the sick torture and rape sequences (slashing and raping a victim listening to happy country and funk), this is pure delight. The antagonism that Hess creates for the soundtrack and its direct relation to the images is singular; whereas later holywood movies emphasize on grand orchestrations to create the mood, The Last House on the Left actually utilizes the music to give the film a further sarcastic, almost insane feeling. The soundtrack is, well, almost doesn’t exist. I looked around for an LP version but seems there is none. David Hess sells a CD version on his website, and according to Discogs there is another CD reissue from an almost unknown label. Best is to go for David’s website.

Even if sometimes the editing and overall crude cinematography gives you a feeling of loss, as if some of the most disturbing scenes were forcibly covered, specially in nowadays standards, the movie is truly psychologically and visually disturbing although it seems sketched as a satire. The movie is hailed as one of the most controversial and shocking rape and murder flicks of all time, this should give you a fair warning when watching. The strange documentary-like feeling of the movie (Craven was inspired by Vietnam-war tales when writing this) overshadows the low-budget cuts and simplistic plot structure, and amateur actors that nonetheless do their very best (specially Hess and J. Lincoln) in this absolute classic that preludes the slasher-genre in a disturbing, unsettling, low-budget way.

Buy DVD:
Last House On The Left – 3 Disc Ultimate Edition (Uncut) [1972] [DVD]

(This brilliant special edition features two versions of the film: the screened version on disc 1, one completely new version including unseen footage, and on the third disc the great documentary “The Rise and Fall of the Slasher film”. Grab it, it’s even cheaper than the older 2-disc edition of the film.)

Heartbreak Score: