"We put her through hell" – Wes Craven as exploitation director

Although this blog is primarily concerned with Sandra Peabody, the person who is usually most closely associated with The Last House on the Left is its director, Wes Craven. There's a tendency among film fans and writers to retcon his early 1970s incarnation as being basically the same as the Craven of the Scream days a quarter of a century later.

This is not really accurate.

In It's Only a Movie, the 2002 making-of documentary that originally appeared on Region 1 DVDs while Celluloid Crime of the Century was brought to Region 2, Craven says:

"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." ¹

Craven doesn't say that last bit with any particular relish, but nor does he say it with any obvious regret or remorse. He smiles in that Wes Craven way as he says it, and though his face becomes more serious afterwards we only see that for a moment before the documentary moves to the next interviewee.

Right at the end of the show, Craven says this, which does not bring massive confidence in his ability to make quick, firm and clear decisions:

"I was stoned most of the time; I don't remember! [laughs]"

Again, this is said lightly as a slightly embarrassing recollection of the days when he and his colleagues were – as Sean Cunningham put it in Szulkin (p45) – "kids running around with a camera". However, given what I've covered here in terms of Sandra's treatment on set, Craven's "stoned" instead prompts more serious questions about his oversight of such a difficult and – for its time – extreme movie.

The US federal Occupational Safery and Health Act of 1970 had come into force in April 1971, just a few months before Last House production began, but enforcement on film sets was often weak until the 1982 Twilight Zone tragedy forced a major reassessment of set safety. A director's part in actor welfare was largely informal and verbal.

This was even more the case in exploitation cinema, which often operated on the margins of the law. Guerilla-style shooting without permits was common, and Craven confirms in Celluloid Crime of the Century that this may have unsettled Sandra:

"We had no credentials. [...] we didn't have any permits. I could see very easily that [Sandra] would be afraid that suddenly this is just going to take a turn – I don't know, It's a snuff film or something. 'What am I doing out here with these people?'" ²

A few listicles and poorly researched articles have suggested that Sandra genuinely believed that she might be in a snuff film, but there is no evidence for this. Craven's tone is jokey, although mentioned only a short time after he'd discussed her genuine fear of David Hess in particular.

What Craven does not discuss is how frightened Sandra was of Hess during Mari's rape scene specifically, a scene which multiple people from Marc Sheffler to Yvonne Hannemann to Craven himself have acknowledged as being very difficult for her. On his commentary track Craven notes more generally that she was "scared to death" and shortly afterwards says:

"To me, it still is one of the most realistic rape scenes I've seen because it's totally ugly and the guy looks like a total animal, and the woman is just in that place where she can do nothing about what's being done to her, and [...] she'll never be the same, and yet she somehow has more dignity than he'll ever have in the rest of his life, and it's very powerful." ³

While Craven does not explicitly link Sandra's fear and this scene, in 2017 Sheffler did just that – vividly and revealingly. His words imply that it was because of Craven's decision to lock off the camera for long takes that Hess was enabled to take the very aggressive approach he did; as Sheffler put it, "he just went at her" and severely scared Sandra.

There's also the forced lesbianism scene, which Sandra said in Szulkin (p73) was "very upsetting for [her] to do". As we have also seen, this was much longer and more explicit before cutting, and a scene where at least one of the most exploitative segments took a double-figure take count. We don't know why it required so many takes, but these were not done in a closed studio but in an unpermitted, largely unsecured outdoor setting.

There is no suggestion that Craven perpetrated any abuse himself, or that he approved of what Hess says he did. There is nevertheless strong evidence from multiple sources – including the director himself – that Sandra was severely frightened on set. There is not strong evidence that Craven chose to do much about it beyond consoling. Sheffler's cliff threat story also suggests a remarkable lack of interest by the director in exactly why his actress was suddenly so much more worked up.

This toleration of, and even use of, genuine fear by an exploitation film director was by no means unique to Last House on the Left. What it does do, however, along with the existence of the extended forced lesbianism scene, is to show that 1971 Wes Craven was not the same director as the Wes Craven™ of several decades later.

He was, rather, an inexperienced exploitation director, and – at least sometimes – he behaved like one. Arguments about the film's place in the horror canon or as a statement against violence make little practical difference if you are Sandra Peabody, "treated very roughly" (Craven's comment to Szulkin on the rape scene) by a man of whom, according to Sheffler you are "frightened to the core of [your] existence".

Steve Dwork, who was a production assistant on Last House, tells Szulkin (p50) in yet another anecdote from that book that reads uncomfortably when considered with a 2020s emotional toolkit:

"Sandra [...] often needed to be consoled or encouraged by Wes. [...] During some of the more demanding scenes in the woods, Wes spent a good deal of time with her, basically telling her, 'This is for God and country; you've got to do this.'"

This sounds more like coercion than partnership, and again it feels more like an exploitation director's approach than that of the later "Master of Horror" Craven. People will often insist that "he got better", and that is true – but that rather avoids the point about where he got better from. His expert handling of actors by 2001 was of little relevance to Sandra in 1971.

Craven was still alive and active when Hess's admissions (boasts, really) of extreme psychological and emotional abuse were published in the 2000s. Indeed, he was interviewed for the very same Vanity Fair piece. By this time Craven was massively influential and could have been published at will, had he issued a brief statement condemning Hess's words and expressing apology or at least sympathy for Sandra.

I have not been able to find one. I cannot say with absolute certainty that he never made one – but if he did, it has certainly not turned up in my extensive searching. Despite being the director of, and the man whose lengthy and starry career in horror began with, The Last House on the Left, in all my research Wes Craven has not appeared once in connection with any such comment.

Craven died in 2015, so no such statement will ever be possible. The opportunity is gone for good.

Yet again, Sandra Peabody deserved better.

¹ It's Only a Movie, dir. David Szulkin, 2002. Available as an extra on many DVD and Blu-ray releases of The Last House on the Left.
² Celluloid Crime of the Century, dir. David Gregory, 2003. Available as an extra on many DVD and Blu-ray releases of The Last House on the Left.
³ Commentary track featuring director Wes Craven and producer Sean S. Cunningham, available on multiple DVD and Blu-ray releases of The Last House on the Left.