How can we watch The Last House on the Left ethically today?

We have established that Sandra Peabody was abused in connection with her work on The Last House on the Left. We also now know from Marc Sheffler himself that the fear on Sandra's face in the scene after the cliff threat was real and deliberately caused. Sheffler also tells us that "a lot of what you see from her is real" because Sandra was "scared shitless" by David Hess's approach to Mari's rape scene. Hess himself tells us that he threatened to rape her for real.

At this point it becomes unsustainable to reasonably lump what happened on the Last House shoot in with the stories of "rough shoots" or "gruelling productions" that are fairly common when discussing 1970s cinema – especially independent grindhouse films shot guerilla-style on small budgets. The ethical issues thrown up by this film are in a qualitatively different category, even before you add in Wes Craven's own mining of Sandra's real fear for realism.

This does not mean that Last House on the Left should be banned. My own view is firmly that this would be wrong, and indeed counter-productive. It doesn't even mean that people shouldn't watch it as a film. We can still watch The Birds as a horror landmark even though we know that Alfred Hitchcock abused Tippi Hedren.¹ We can still enjoy The Wizard of Oz as a family classic even though we know that MGM abused Judy Garland.²

But the word "know" is important. Although it has taken many decades from the time of the abuse, it is now well understood and accepted that these women were abused, and this fact is routinely mentioned in any serious study of the films in question. With Last House that is not the case. Indeed, as my look at legacy media and academic writing has shown, it remains rare that Sandra's treatment, as opposed to Mari's, is mentioned at all.

There is worse. While those who watch the film on streaming services will probably and quite reasonably assume that it was made, if not to modern standards, then at least without actual harm, that cannot be said about those who know what is on the current Blu-ray release. Arrow Films made the choice to include Celluloid Crime of the Century, "Scoring Last House", "Junior's Story" and the actors' commentary track.

We therefore have considerable evidence for Sandra's mistreatment available for the price of a disc. When you add in David Szulkin's book – not that hard to find second-hand – there is really no excuse for serious studies or writing about Last House on the Left not to include at least something about what happened behind the scenes. Listicle-style euphemisms like "Peabody found it difficult" are so inadequate as to border on the offensive in themselves.

The film is indeed influential on its genre and for effectively launching Craven's highly significant career as a horror director. It is perfectly reasonable for film schools to study it as such. But it is not reasonable for them to simply skate over or omit entirely the reasons why the film looks as it does, since at times when Sandra is on screen, Mari's disturbingly realistic appearance is intimately connected with her actress's treatment.

So no, we don't need to stop watching Last House on the Left. We do, however, need to watch it honestly, understanding what happened in its making and the serious harm that was caused to a young and vulnerable woman by real-life threats and fear. If we cannot even give Sandra that, then all our protestations about respecting women in film are only so much hot air. We must do better. Sandra Peabody deserves better.

¹ Lang, Brent, "Tippi Hedren on Why She Went Public About Being Sexually Abused by Alfred Hitchcock". Variety (16 November 2016).
² Jha, Subhash K., "Judy Garland, the first abused child superstar". National Herald (28 June 2020).