"last house '09"

I saw the original Last House on the Left (or, Last House '72) towards the end of college, when Matt and I went on this big, years-long binge of horror movies. A lot of them have kind of blended together, to the point that I sometimes can't remember if a scene that I'm remembering is from Fulchi's Zombi 2 or Argento's Bird with the Crystal Plumage (hint: if it involves zombies, it's Fulchi), but two certainly haven't: Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer (perhaps a subject for another day), and Wes Craven's The Last House on the Left. I'd like to be sarcastic and say it's because of the hyper-inappropriate cross-cutting between the Keystone Kops rushing to the house to save the day (which, as anyone who has a passing familiarity with Craven's work can tell you, they don't) and the brutal, nasty stuff going down in and around the Collingwood cabin, but it's really because it had an exceptionally visceral quality to it that I'd never seen in a film before, and doubt I ever will again (I feel inclined to make a virginity joke here, but I'll leave that one to you, dear reader).

Last House '09 has got nothing on it's predecessor. It says nothing significant, isn't noteworthy for any other reason that Garrett Dillahunt's performance (which is extraordinary, as usual - does that make it "ordinary?"), and, insofar as the much-bandied-about "ending" goes, is fairly lacking.

I wrote myself a bunch of notes on my iPhone over the course of the film, but, due to the fact that I feel less than inspired to translate them into paragraphs of writing, I'll just post them, in their entirety, in the order in which they came to me:

"cigarette lighter why not in the eye

aerial view of the suv pinballing

closeup doesn't equal awkward

arbitrary nudity

swimming shot at the start is good foreshadowing

c grade paul dano [regarding the son]

there's a difference between gritty realism and manufactured gritty realism

krug wants his son to look - how does that relate to us the audience

2x stabbing - first time i've seen that in a movie?

assault is alternately well & poorly shot - so poorly edited?

mythbusters

dillahunt likes shooting motherfuckers in the back

no one's likable enough to generate sympathy

resetting broken nose = FUCK

stitches don't quite = fuck

oh shit the power went out

making memories

daughter surviving is lame - they should've stolen the girls' phones and been found out that way...?

justin sees -> what could his reaction say about the audience

maybe i take it back re finding out (still could've been a good fuck you we know what you did moment

c grade viggo [regarding the dad]

history of violence

cutting on your own child

this is the sort of movie that makes people hate handycam?

like a summer guest home invasion movie?

francis & emma in the kitchen

zombie fighting tool shed

no outdoors bj w/ biting... almost too bad

reverse rape through drowning?

garbage disposal

couple walked out

fireplace poker

son sees krug & sadie in bed, watching w/ gun

crazy topless bitch with shower curtain rod - mom shoots her where daughter should've burned her

husband & wife can only kill in tandem

music is vaguely john carpenter

water is...?"

...So, there you go.