By now we've firmly established that Sandra Peabody endured treatment in connection with her Last House on the Left role that was far beyond what an actress should expect while making a movie. She was psychologically and emotionally abused by certain others to an extent that was often not considered acceptable even by the lax standards of 1970s film-making, let alone today's more humane sets.
Marc Sheffler, who has spoken more than most of the surviving Last House veterans on the record over the last few years, said in his 2022 YouTube interview with Hollywood Wade that:
"[Sandra] was a sweet person [...] she was a particularly nice person [...] A sweet, kind, harmless girl"1
Sheffler also shows empathy for her in his "Junior's Story" interview, saying that he doesn't blame her for being extremely frightened when David Hess "just went at her" during the filming of Mari's rape scene.
The Last House makeup artist, Anne Paul, described Sandra in her "Blood and Guts" interview as:
"A sweet girl. Young and sweet. A little skittish, you know? Who wouldn't be?"
Fred Lincoln, among others, mentions Sandra leaving the set and that sometimes "she was scared to death". Sheffler, corroborating this in his 2018 Without Your Head interview, says that Lincoln was sent to persuade her back, since he already knew her.2
Meanwhile, Wes Craven called Sandra "plucky" and said he "liked [her] a lot" when discussing her having "hung in there" despite being treated "very roughly" during the aforementioned rape scene (Szulkin, p79). He also praised Sandra in It's Only a Movie, saying:
"Sandra Peabody did a great job. She really put herself out there and she was a very sweet girl who was not some worldly wise [laughs] you know, uh, starlet, and we put her through hell."
As we can see, there is no real shortage of people willing to go on the record and express the opinion that Sandra was a nice person, that she was frightened, or that she endured sometimes very rough treatment. Sheffler himself is open about his holding her over a drop and threatening to let her go as a way to extract the desired performance.
What there is a shortage of – in fact, to the best of my knowledge, a total absence of – is anyone who was directly involved in the production of The Last House on the Left actually saying sorry or even expressing regret at what Sandra went through. We don't of course know what might have been said to her in private, but in public? I've found absolutely no sign.
Sheffler comes the closest, validating her fear of Hess in "Junior's Story" for example and telling Without Your Head that "anybody would be scared" at being held partly over a cliff. But in well over 20 years from the David Szulkin book's publication, he never seems to have taken the next step. Nor have I found any other member of cast or crew doing that, nor being prompted to by either professional or horror fandom interviewers.
It wouldn't even be necessary for such a person to admit to deliberate wrong-doing. A simple, public statement, in an interview or online, saying something like "I'm sorry that Sandra was so frightened" or acknowledging that they were inexperienced and made mistakes that caused Sandra distress would be significant in its own right. It could also be said without infringing her privacy.
Extraordinarily, the person who came the closest to expressing outright regret about Sandra's treatment was David Hess. At the end of his otherwise appallingly abusive commentary track story about the rape scene, he says:
"It's terrible the way we manipulated Sandra, it's just so… but she asked to be manipulated, buddy. She did!"3
The initial expression of apparent remorse is rendered worthless almost immediately by victim-blaming – but even this momentary recognition of Sandra's treatment is more than anyone else seems to have managed in decades.
I don't know why it has apparently never happened. Film-making and societal attitudes in general have shifted so far in half a century, especially in the last decade or two, that it is surely unlikely that loyalty to fellow Last House team members would still outweigh the simple compassionate humanity of openly regretting their colleague's fear and distress.
And time is running out. Hess himself died in 2011. Fred Lincoln died in 2013. Wes Craven died in 2015. Sean Cunningham is in his eighties. Even the youngest personnel who worked on the movie are now well into their seventies. The opportunity for one of them to go on the record will not be there forever. Sheffler, for example, an articulate interviewee who has repeatedly told the cliff threat story.
Expressing apology or even simple regret, acknowledging that Sandra Peabody deserved better, would not wave a magic wand and remove the abuse she suffered in connection with her role as Mari on Last House on the Left. It would, however, be meaningful, and it would address what is by this point an increasingly sad and striking absence.
1 "Marc Sheffler sits down w/ Hollywood Wade to discuss the infamous Horror film Last house on the Left", Hollywood Wade | Crime & Entertainment, YouTube, 4 Sep 2022. Timestamp 36:21
2 "Marc Sheffler of Wes Craven's Last House on the Left interview". withoutyourhead, 4 Apr 2018. Timestamp 28:55
3 Commentary track featuring actors David Hess, Marc Sheffler and Fred Lincoln, available on multiple DVD and Blu-ray releases of The Last House on the Left.
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