"Nobody is served by refusing to see that for what it is" – my Letterboxd review of Last House

Although this blog is my main focus when discussing what was done to Sandra Peabody as she worked on The Last House on the Left, it is not the only place I write. I recently posted a review of the film on Letterboxd, and for completeness I shall reproduce it here. I awarded the film the minimum possible star rating of 0.5 out of 5, and I made it very clear why I was doing that. Here is the review in full:

"I rarely rate films based on behind-the-scenes stories, but Last House on the Left is an exception, because the way Sandra Peabody (Mari) was treated by certain colleagues bleeds directly into what you see when watching. Her on-screen fear during Mari's most traumatic sequence is not only largely genuine, it was at least in part deliberately induced. This was due to the frighteningly aggressive way David Hess decided to play Mari's tormentor Krug in that scene, an approach which even in the 1970s could and should have been moderated by Wes Craven.

The above only scratches the surface, as do the slew of listicles and trivia spots that fail to capture the true extent of Peabody's suffering. I strongly advise fans of this film to experience the Blu-ray extras in full – especially those featuring or partially about Hess – as well as David Szulkin's essential (though long out of print) making-of book. That now reads a good deal more disturbingly in places than it likely did when first published in the late 1990s. So it should: "it was another time" is rarely a particularly good excuse for ethical failings.

Last House is therefore not a movie I feel able to assess purely on its story. For what it's worth, though: despite its undeniable influence on the genre it is largely a tonally jarring mess. A mess with the occasional flash of real power, yes, not least in two almost wordless scenes involving water. One of these centres Mari and may well be the most genuinely affecting sequence in the film. It is also one of the few times that the bizarre soundtrack (by Hess) provides genuine enhancement to a scene. The grainy Super 16 picture sometimes serves to make the found-footage feel disturbingly effective but at other times simply looks amateurish.

For all the high-minded talk about Vietnam and depicting unflinching violence as a statement *against* violence, this is at heart an exploitation movie – directed by a man who back then could behave more like his peers than many fans of the later Wes Craven™ prefer to admit. This is visible in a cruel scene involving Krug's gang sexually humiliating their young victims (Phyllis, played by Lucy Grantham, is the other). It was originally filmed much longer and in gratuitous, leering detail. In her only Last House interview, Peabody told Szulkin she cried a lot while acting it.

Last House on the Left being a rape-revenge film, it is no spoiler to say that the final third covers the "revenge" part of proceedings. I'm not the first person to note that this resembles nothing so much as a violent and at times truly absurd precursor to Home Alone. The use of a live chainsaw, several years before Tobe Hooper had the same stupid idea, offered extra danger to those on set for very little extra on-screen impact. The ending, meanwhile, is a great deal less profound than it seems to think it is.

But the effect on Peabody especially outweighs everything else. It is to Wes Craven's discredit that he apparently never managed to make the jump from "I wouldn't make a film this way again" to "I shouldn't have done it then either; I'm sorry, Sandra". I would prefer to give this film no rating at all, but Letterboxd's setup means that could seem like I was simply unsure. I am not: the way Last House was made resulted in real and unnecessary distress, often visible on screen, and nobody is served by refusing to see that for what it is."

As you will note, I have avoided mentioning any of the most serious stories Sandra's abuse and mistreatment explicitly. That would have risked turning them into exactly the sort of uncontextualised trivia that I have been trying to avoid for more than fifty posts here. It would also have risked Sandra's dignity for much the same reason. Instead, I have simply provided anyone who is seriously interested with easily accessible and significant ways into the primary sources: the Blu-ray extras and Szulkin's book.

Since Letterboxd is fundamentally a film review platform, I have also included more about the Last House fictional story than I do over here where I assume my readers are familiar with its plot. I acknowledge that the film is not without worth as a film, but I explain that this is outweighed by the harm that Sandra endured in its making. Whether anyone will ever engage with the review on Letterboxd I don't know, but it was important to me to write it.

At the very least, I have added something that is rarely seen in Last House on the Left section on that site: a highly negative review in English that runs to more than a few sentences. You already know, I'm sure, what my motivation was for writing and posting it, but to spell it out once more to centre the person who should be centred here: Sandra Peabody deserves better.