MovieChat Forums > The Last House on the Left (1972) Discussion > The cops...

The cops...

posted 10 years ago by chris-w-1
1 reply | jump to latest

Really wanted to like this movie, almost did, the sound effects used at times gave the movie a really obscure vibe and the murderers were really believable at times as complete psychos.
But, and this is by far the movies greatest downfall, were how useless and out of place the police were; I couldn't decide if they were the 'comic relief' (which wasnt needed) or just genuinely really bad actors given an even worse script. Also, some of the music didnt help at all, almost sounded like a carry on film at times.
like I said, almost liked it, almost.

[–] garp-26 9 years ago

Have to agree and I'm somewhat baffled by their inclusion. My only guess is that Craven and Cunningham thought they would lose their audience if the tone of the film was unremittingly bleak and harrowing, and so having bumbling, inept cops would serve as (ill judged) light relief and at the same time serve as an opportunity to be critical of state police and authorities depicting them as anachronistic and irrelevant. The effect though, as you say, is somewhat akin to the grubby soft porn of the seventies that inserted clumsy, unfunny slapstick sequences. But given Craven and Cunningham's background prior to this one the observation isn't entirely inapt.
How better it would have been to have had the police as shadowy figures, totally unable or unwilling to penetrate this bubble of sadistic, nihilistic violence either through incompetence or ignorance. It worked for the Texas Chainsaw Massacre where the added horror derived from the feeling that there would be absolute nobody, law enforcement or otherwise, who would be there to save the victims.