The great betrayal – Sandra's ability turned against her

By the time she arrived on the Last House on the Left set, Sandra Peabody had a high quality acting education. Not only had she obtained a BA after studying drama at the highly regarded Carnegie Mellon University, but she had graduated from two years at the Neighborhood Playhouse. There, she had studied under Sanford Meisner, one of the great acting teachers of the twentieth century.

Meisner's technique rejects the older "method" approach of drawing from real-life past events to inform traumatic scenes, as "Sandy" felt that was too dangerous to an actor's wellbeing. Instead, he promoted what he called "living truthfully under imaginary circumstances", in which actors learn to remain emotionally present and responsive so that they can respond to stimuli on an instinctual rather than intellectual level.

When done properly, this results in a highly believable performance – and because the emotions and impulses are authentic, even micro-reactions visible on an actor's face convince. This is extremely important in film acting, where the camera often captures fine details that can be missed or glossed over when looking at a distant performer on a theatre stage.

Because a Meisner actor has to "drop their emotional guard" in order to respond authentically and spontaneously, they deliberately make themselves highly vulnerable. This means that it is absolutely crucial that scene partners maintain absolute trust in each other. The bargain is: "I will allow myself to fall – you will always be there to catch me." A true Meisner actor like Sandra will place the safety of their scene partner above everything else.

The tragedy of Sandra's experience on Last House was that the simulated threats and harm she had prepared for and dropped her defences to respond to were not all she received. On occasion, as with Marc Sheffler's threat to push her off a cliff or David Hess's horrifying threat to rape her for real, the stimuli forced on her were not safe, rehearsed, imaginary dangers but real ones. That the actors did not intend to follow through and actually cause her physical injury is irrelevant: the body responds to imagined threats of harm very similarly to sincere ones. ¹

The combination of a credible threat of serious bodily harm and the emotional vulnerability required of a Meisner actor is a devastating one. It means that when such a threat does arrive, the recipient has no "shield" to protect herself from the worst, no way of telling herself, "It's only make-believe and he probably doesn't mean it." Fear would have been instant and overwhelming. Indeed, both Sheffler and Hess note how frightened Sandra was after their threats. This is not coincidental.

I am not an actor, but I am assured that to someone who genuinely practises that craft in a controlled and safe manner, what those men did to Sandra goes far beyond mere unethical behaviour and into the realm of absolute betrayal. One way I've seen it described is as a kind of vertigo: the actor hearing about what Sandra experienced feels the floor drop out from under them, because the very bedrock of what acting is has been ripped away, leaving only a terrifying void.

Sheffler openly notes in his 2020 statement about the cliff threat that "the fear you see in her face is real". Hess on the commentary track sounds amused when he says he thinks she was so overwhelmed by terror that she could no longer be sure whether the rape scene was simulated or had crossed into real assault. Sandra's elite professional training – a far cry from Hess, who "knew nothing about acting" – was a major asset in actual acting, but left her defenceless when it was weaponised against her.

Sandra's forced and genuine emotional reaction was used in the film you watch on streaming or Blu-ray today. When you watch those scenes, you are not watching controlled acting; you are watching a young woman forced into extreme fear. She allowed herself to fall, but Sheffler and Hess did not catch her, instead pushing her down harder. Even if Sheffler, at least, was not malicious, the result was similar. It was the absolute antithesis of what acting should be about.

That Sandra not only survived this abuse but remained to finish her role and went on to spend so many years working to protect young people, giving them the support she was denied on the Last House set, is a profound illustration of the remarkable courage she showed both while on the shoot and in later years. In her late seventies, Sandra Peabody still passes on ethical, safe Meisner technique the way her great teacher practised it. That is moral heroism.

¹ Segal, Jeanned, PhD, et al. "Stress Symptoms, Signs, and Causes", helpguide.org (undated).