LAST HOUSE ON THE LEFT — SHOCKTOBER!

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Wes Craven's debut film is everything wrong with exploitation cinema. Mean spirited to its core, this film's overriding theme seems to be that society is broken up into three categories: killers, victims, and witnesses.

Amateur filmmaker Craven switches tone between horrific sexual abuse, lighthearted comedy, and hippie crushing thriller.

Schlock.

Just ugly.

Actor David Hess's folk guitar songs point in a dead-end direction. Hess takes a piss at Led Zeppelin's "Stairway To Heaven" with a too often repeated song that states, "And the road leads to nowhere."

I suppose it is fitting for such a piece of shit movie.

David Hess plays Krug, a cigar-chomping killer living out his perverted obsessions on two hippie girls that Krug and his "family" kidnap to torture. 

Wes Craven reworks Ingmar Bergman's significant "Virgin Spring" into something cruel and disgusting.

The specter of the Viet Nam War only hangs over the movie with the thinnest of threads.

The sexual abuse and murder scenes are treated without regard to any meaningful subtext. This is a movie without a soul.

There is no social commentary to be found. This is exploitation for exploitation sake.

Gene Siskel put it succinctly in his review of the movie.

"My objection to The Last House on the Left is not an objection to the graphic representations of violence per se, but to the fact that the movie celebrates violent acts, particularly adult male abuse of young women ... I felt a professional obligation to stick around to see if there was any socially redeeming value in the remainder of the movie and found none."

Rated R. 84 mins.

ZERO STARS

DON'T BE AFRAID OF THE DARK — SHOCKTOBER!

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Producer/co-writer Guillermo del Toro, the visionary filmmaker responsible for "Pan's Labyrinth," performs the neat trick of adapting the original 1973 television horror movie "Don't Be Afraid of the Dark" into a tastefully suspenseful work of kid-friendly art, directed by newcomer Troy Nixey.

In spite of some glaring plot inconsistencies regarding such matters as regional location and creature voices, "Don't Be Afraid of the Dark" is sure to scare the heebeejeebies out of willing 12-year-old audiences. It's surprising that the MPAA gave the film an R rating considering that, to this critic's eye, the movie is ideally suited to preteen and teenaged viewers.

Bailee Madison ("Bridge to Terabithia") plays Sally, the ten-year-old daughter of hotshot architect Alex Hurst (Guy Pearce). Alex invites Sally away from his ex-wife to come stay with him and his new girlfriend Kim (Katie Holmes) at Blackwood Manor, a Gothic New England mansion he's busy restoring.

The spooky house holds secrets from its original owner, an artist whose son's death drove him homicidally insane. Things go bump in the night (and in the day) after Sally goes poking around where she shouldn't, namely the basement. Bailee Madison's compulsive knowing smirk of approval slyly admits her character's playful attitude toward the ominous danger that threatens her.

No one believes her stories about whispering little monsters that haunt her and commit acts of vandalism. There's very little blood in this horror movie built on suspense — think "The Others." "Don't Be Afraid of the Dark" is a nuanced horror movie modulated to incur just the right quality of nightmare. You might want to sleep with the light on for a few nights after seeing it.

Rated R. 100 mins.

THE FLY — SHOCKTOBER!

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Add David Cronenberg's 1986 version of "The Fly" to the short list of successful remakes in the history of the movies.

Cronenberg hit the height of his Hollywood success with a bold update of director Kurt Neumann's 1958 original that starred the great Vincent Price, who famously became spider bait in the film's celebrated final scene.

From its ingenious pre-CGI special effects and spellbinding production design, to Jeff Goldblum’s sensational performance, “The Fly” is a masterpiece of cinematic horror that escalates to a white heat of tension.

Scientist Seth Brundle (Goldblum) works on a teleportation device when he isn’t courting Geena Davis. Calamity strikes when a common house fly accidentally gets trapped inside the teleporter with Seth during an experiment. Naturally, his DNA becomes fused with the buzzing insect that most people like to delete from kitchens with fly-swatters. 

The filmmaker's attention to details, such as the wiry hairs that start growing from Seth's back, take the audience on an dark physiological trip. Here is the stuff nightmares are made of. Try not to shut your eyes when one unfortunate arm-wrestler loses with a bone-breaking climax. 

Cronenberg weaves surprise and suspense into a taught tapestry of overpowering emotion and shocking nightmare reality. This film's pre-CGI special effects are just perfect.

Gory, gooey, and great, right through to the last frame, this is one horror movie you'll never forget.

Rated R. 96 mins.