The Last House on The Left really shows how a horror movie can have its sadistic thrills without completely dehumanizing the audience and sacrificing identification with the victims.

Like Tobe Hooper’s The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, this movie takes its first sections to let the viewer get acquainted with the intended victims. I personally felt invested in what happened to the two teens, and one of the girl’s parents, after about 15 minutes or so, genuinely appalled by the acts taken against them later in the film.

It’s a movie that’s well done with a low budget, with the angles, film grain and its overall look making you feel like a voyeur watching some kind of disembodied “home movie.” Living in a rural area myself, I could easily identify with being near a creek and among the autumnal leaves and rocky environment the characters find themselves in. Nicely done on that front.

And the three instigators are genuine, cold-blooded creeps that I vehemently routed against. The ironies and the near misses had me conversing with the television, hoping outloud that something was going to come and prevent the tragedy from unfolding.

Also, The Last House on The Left has more humor than is warranted, which I highly appreciated. In my book, it’s a classic in the same vein as The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (1974).

If the Weasel character seems cold and particularly distant, it’s worth noting that the actor, Fred Lincoln, had starred in a handful of porno movies before then, and went on to direct around 300 of them afterwards.