10 Best Exploitation Films Of All Time

10. The Last House On The Left

One of the most famous titles ever banned in the UK, The Last House On The Left may lack an attention-grabbing title, but the brilliant ad campaign (“To avoid fainting, keep repeating ‘It’s only a movie…’”) more than makes up for it. Raw and primitive, Wes Craven’s debut became one of the most influential exploitation films of the 1970s.

A picture with more on its mind than the depiction of sadism, Last House makes the point that violence degrades victim and victimizer alike. After each killing, there’s no satisfaction felt by the perpetrator, just a sense of self-disgust, which holds true whether the perpetrator is middle-aged and well off or a slum-residing gang member.

You can see the film’s influence on such later films as Late Night Trains (1975), I Spit On Your Grave (1978) and The House On The Edge Of The Park (1980). Last House was officially remade in 2009 and ripped off by Chaos (2005) which despite not being very good, still comes closer to matching the raw power of Craven’s original than the slick studio remake.