Welcome to Not Only a Movie

Welcome to Not Only a Movie. Please remember the most important rule, especially when commenting. The following is a non-negotiable condition:

Respect for Sandra Peabody's boundaries, dignity, humanity and safety.

This blog aims to bring together the scattered and often garbled evidence relating to the treatment of Sandra Peabody (then credited as Sandra Cassell, so I will use both names but mostly stick to the clear "Sandra") in relation to the production of The Last House on the Left. The film was shot in autumn 1971 and released in August 1972. Subjects I will be covering include:

• The commentary track containing explicit admissions of abuse, barely mentioned by Blu-ray reviewers
• Multiple examples of David Hess (Krug) referring to Sandra in disturbing and sexualised ways
• An extraordinary on-the-record admission of abuse that has been almost completely ignored for seventeen years
• Marc Sheffler (Junior) telling a story involving threatening Sandra to produce a desired reaction for a scene
• Fred Lincoln (Weasel) saying something startling that nobody seems to have commented on

• The moment Sandra risked her career to get away from what was happening on the LHOTL film set
• How director Wes Craven allowed Sandra's real fear to be used for the film, even if he didn't know its cause
• Ethical concerns relating to the continued availability of Last House and some of its extras uncontextualised
• Key quotes from Sandra Cassell/Peabody herself in David Szulkin's essential making-of book
• Sandra Peabody's courage, and her lifelong determination to do the opposite of what was done to her

As you can see, there is a lot to get through. However, one thing I won't be doing is simply making unsourced assertions. There's an awful lot of that on the web already, which is a major part of the problem. In my online travels I've seen major scenes wrongly described, mix-ups of major personnel, incorrect dates, you name it. I hope to do better.