Day 28: Last House on the Left

Another busy day and another short post....hopefully the rest of this week will be a little calmer and I can devote more time to finishing out the month. I spent the day in a meeting and then revising (again!) the Clinical Project paper. I was hoping to finish Version 3.0 as I was going to call it.....but we only managed to get through about half the paper - so I called it Version 2.5 instead. Whee! That's a little Clinical Project humor, y'all! Now I'm back to waiting for feedback on the rest.......

I thought I'd be seeing Paranormal Activity tonight (still crossing my fingers that it'll happen this weekend) but-nope. Spent my evening at the cinema with Vince Vaughn instead. (I gotta let Papa Cash pick the movies SOMETIMES). So instead, let's talk about what I watched last night.....

I'm normally not in a hurry to see a lot of remakes - and when I heard Last House was being remade, I thought I'd probably put it on my 'Do Not Want' list.

I am a big fan of the original - although it took me several viewings to really appreciate the film. I don't think it's a fun movie to watch, and the first time I saw it, I hated it. I only came to appreciate it in the last few years, and even with that appreciation, it's not something I just pop in the DVD player for kicks.

But since I'd read some positive reviews from people whose opinion I trust, (and since I'm STILL waiting for Trick R Treat and The Hills Run Red to become available on Netflix), I thought, what the heck.

I tried hard not to compare it to the original - although that's just about impossible. The basic story and characters are intact - with some minor changes and one HUGE one concerning the ending. I do think the bad guys in this movie can't compare with the originals - these new baddies are pretty despicable, but they can't hold a candle to the original Krug (David Hess), Sadie (Jeramie Rain), and the others. THOSE bad guys really made you feel like they might do anything, at any time - and you KNEW those girls weren't going to have a happy ending. These new guys were bad - but I wasn't as afraid of them - I didn't think they were as scary or unpredictable as Hess and Co.

Another change was to make the character of Junior (Krug's son) more of a victim than in the first movie. In the remake, it's made apparent that Junior (now called Justin) is abused and powerless and really doesn't want to be a part of what's happening. The original Junior is portrayed as being slower and dumber than his 2009 counterpart - and also more dangerous.

I probably wouldn't buy this, or watch it again, but as a remake - it beats most of them hands down. It was fine for an evening's entertainment - and I thought the depiction of the parents turning into vigilantes was appropriate. After all, if two professional adults suddenly find themselves fighting to defend (and revenge) themselves, they aren't going to immediately turn into professional killers. It's probably going to be a little sloppy and a little trial and error.

So if you're really in a mood for a horror flick, and you've either seen everything else, or your first choice is gone....I say check it out. The acting is decent, it moves along well, and even if you're familiar with the first film, there's enough that's changed to create a little bit of suspense.

And the road leads to nowhere,
Mother Firefly