20. The Last House On The Left (1972) Taxi Driver is considered the
definitive rebuke of '70s vigilante movies, but it's a laugh-a-minute joy ride
next to the vengeful depravity depicted in The Last House On The Left.
Drawing from Ingmar Bergman's The Virgin Spring, Wes Craven's brilliantly
unwatchable first feature is a no-holds-barred depiction of the rape and murder
of two teenage girls by a pack of hippie lunatics, and the graphic revenge the
girls' parents enact on the murderers. Last House looks cheap and
amateurish, which adds to its snuff-film-style realism. Never has the gulf
between "great film" and "enjoyable" been so wide.
