Wes Craven Talks 'Last House' Remodel
Wes Craven Talks 'Last House' Remodel
Last Remake Left?
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The Last House On The Left certainly won't be the last of his movies we'll see being remade —Platinum Dunes, the canny cash czars behind the recent box office smash Friday the 13th, is next moving to A Nightmare on Elm Street — and horror master Wes Craven doesn't mind a bit. Maybe it is because this remake, House, was done with his very active participation and valuable input though his own production company.
While he is known as a fairly hands-off producer, Craven has made himself available to the filmmakers reinterpreting his classic shockers. The first one that comes to mind is the white-knuckle do-over of 1977's The Hills Have Eyes, seen through new eyes by French frightener Alexandre Aja three years ago. Dennis Iliadis, a Greek director known for his bleak, controversial debut about teenage prostitutes, Hardcore, is now taking a crack (and a bludgeoning, stabbings, shootings…) at the Craven classic which debuted way back in 1972.
The new movie was shown in its entirely for selected genre press last night (my review coming soon, plus a retro-review of the original, in its new-fangled upcoming DVD form). On hand to answer questions from moderator Ryan Rotten (ShockTillYouDrop.com) and the collective audience / press were Craven and actors Garret Dillahunt, Monica Potter, and Sara Paxton.
Dillahunt plays Krug, a sadistic fugitive who winds up taking teenaged Mari (Paxton) hostage, then brutally attacking her. Potter plays Mari's vengeful mom in the movie and there is violence aplenty.
Craven said the main allure of bringing back such a feel-bad film and leaving most of the sadistic elements in place, are because our economic times and state of war and politics are almost a mirror reflection of where the U.S. was in 1972 — that, and he and co-producer Sean S. Cunningham both have full rights restored. "The original contract gave the studio, or whoever bought it, the rights to the material for 30 years. Thirty years later, we own this thing. It's the same thing with The Hills Have Eyes. And [also] The Last House on the Left where we finally got to enjoy the benefits, and it was a matter of, 'Why not remake it? Let's find a talented director and people and see what happens.'
"I think it's a film for its time [even now]. 9/11 was perhaps the ultimate home invasion, not to be glib about it. Certainly profoundly shocking to the American psyche. [And so] there is still some profound relevance to this film, I think."
When it comes to leaving out some of the subplots (the 'Keystone cops', or the extreme humiliation the '72 victims were forced to endure — such as being made to wet themselves), Craven said, "It was a very shocking thing for its time. For me, it was like one of the more humiliating acts in our childhood in some way. We all have something like that. People laugh at you, and say, 'You're a baby,' that kind of thing. That was the reason we had that in there.
"It wasn't necessary here. What was necessary was people pushing the boundaries of going into the personal space of their victims in a way that was unnecessary and perverse in the most profound sense of the word. Beyond that, it was Dennis' call on what should be in there and I think he and Carl Ellsworth — who did a rewrite, and wrote Red Eye — probably felt the original had more than what they needed.
"Marianne Maddalena and I had conversations and one of the first things we said was, 'Let's take this to the next level.' Let's take this up to the next level where this could almost play in an art house. That has proven to be the thing Dennis has managed to do, sometimes almost to spite us. Sometimes we went, 'It's too slow, it's too arty,' and then we watched it with the first test audience and we were just astonished by the power of it. It's almost one of those things where you do something of certain significance and you step back and say, 'This is just a great story, it's powerful, it comes from an evil tale that has lasted... there's a great core story here, let's give it to another artist then step back.'
"Dennis really got some magnificent actors and my hat's off to all of them. They exposed their souls and held nothing back and achieved some of the most intense, genuine moments [I imagined]. I'm very proud to have my name on this."
Check back soon for Part Two, with Garrett Dillahunt
Staci Layne Wilson reporting
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