Tweet

Hopping into the way back machine and heading to last years Ghost House Underground releases comes The Last House in the Woods, a low budget Italian flick that borrows and steals from the old 70s era of exploitation films.  It has been awhile since this was released on DVD, but in the interest of complete coverage on the Ghost House Underground titles, I’m going to work through this one and all the others we missed.

The story follows a young couple on the rocks and the strange and deadly ordeal they find themselves in.  First, they’re assaulted by bullies and the boyfriend is beaten while the girlfriend is almost raped.  This is all halted by the timely intervention of an older couple, who we immediately know are only pretending to be nice.  Toss in some deformed adoptive sons, a little cannibalism and a whole bunch of coincidences that end in blood shed and there you have it.

Kills

Ten people meet their demise during the duration of this film, most of them coming rather rapidly at the end.  One or two of the kills are cool, but for the most partly they’re fairly standard if not a little weak.

Ills

While the kills may be weak, there is at least a variety of violence.  There is a car accident, someone is run over, a head is smashed with a rock, the attempted rape, a leg and an arm are cut off, there are gunshots to the head, a chainsaw to the gut, guts spilling out and slit throats.  There is also some sort of massive boil that is popped that shoots out a goo that looks a little like mustard.  While this sounds impressive, the effects are passable, but not great.

Lust

Old Italian exploitation films should be offended that this imitator only managed to briefly show bra and panty shots, with no nudity.

Learning

Never trust strangers and avoid isolated houses in the woods.  This should be common knowledge.

Review

Unfortunately and expectedly, Last House is a derivative piece of work that doesn’t bring anything new to the table.  What it does bring, it doesn’t manage to do well, with mediocre acting and great gore moments that fail to impress due to their technical limitations.  The blood work is on par with a really good student film, as are most of the kills and wounds.  Even if you ignore the lazy dubbing, the acting still comes off as over the top in several places and completely underwhelming in others.  The rambunctious giggling of the assaulters cheapens the rape scene, stripping it of any emotional impact and replacing tension and fear with boredom and smirking.  On the positive side, the film does manage to channel the vibe and visual style of the exploitation movies it so desperately wants to be in terms of camera movements, framing, and zooms.  In regards to the cinematography, it is pretty standard low budget video, lacking the odd charm of washed out film.

As you may have guessed simply from the title, the film does borrow some aspects of The Last House on the Left, namely that one set of badguys unwittingly show up at the same location of their victims.  The chainsaw action is probably also a nod to TLHOTL while the mutant adoptive children are high-fiving The Hills Have Eyes.  For an Italian film, they sure do love Wes Craven.  To spread the love even more, there are three or four nods to The Texas Chainsaw Massacre. Perhaps if they spent more time advancing a logical story or evening out character actions instead of just ripping off classic horror films, they’d have been able to make a better film.

Plot wise, things are mostly straight forward, though there are plenty of moments of Stupid People Doing Stupid Things, like running upstairs or failing to fight back or whimpering for no reason.  The characters are warned several times of a dangerous room, though that never pans out to be meaningful – how scary is a kid with sharp teeth?  Did I forget to mention they also through cannibalism into the mix?  Not because they want to or need to or don’t have food.  But because their son is “a monster.”  The film reaches for a message at the end via the son and cannibalism, trying to make it about parents who love their child so much, but really their actions clearly mark them as resenting the child.

What it comes down to is this – do you like Italian exploitation films from the 70s?  Would you like them if they took out the nudity?  If you answered yes to both questions, this film will be great for you.  If you answered no to either, you should probably skip it.  A script full of uneven and unintentionally erratic characters that meanders towards a burst of violence that fails to impress push this The Last House in the Woods below average even in the Direct to DVD market. If there is one reason to watch this film, it would be the strange climax between the flesh-eating monster-child and another kid who was basically and non-sensically kept alive to feed him.  Imagine a 9 year old hugging (somehow) a quadruple amputee and you’ll get the idea.  Though I’m not entirely sure about the reasoning of this, other than shock value.  It’s implied they’ve been feeding people to their kid for awhile – why keep a child with barely any meat on him alive as a food dispenser when you could either keep killing adults or keep an adult alive, as they’ve got more meet?  Either way, its a strange sight to see, so if you happen across this and want to watch the last 15 minutes, go for it.  It’s the only interesting part.  Well, that, and anything with a chainsaw makes my groin tingly.

If you’ve seen The Last House in the Woods, offer up your opinions below.