10 Hidden Meanings Behind Famous Horror Movies

Wes Craven’s gory tale of revenge exacted by two seemingly straight-laced parents upon the perpetrators of their daughter’s rapists and murderers caused quite the stir upon its release in the early 1970s. Part of a new wave of films alongside the likes of Night of the Living Dead and The Texas Chain Saw Massacre that were taboo-busting in their graphic portrayal of violence, the movie was even banned on several occasions in the United Kingdom by the ever squeamish BBFC. But there was method to Craven’s apparent madness: the director was deliberately trying to relate the staged violence in The Last House on the Left with the very real violence taking place in Vietnam, and raising questions as to whether that violence was indeed justified.

As the world’s first media war Vietnam allowed those not fighting on the frontlines to witness the true brutality of war. Still though, the shocking images of the Vietnam War were mediated via TV screens from a far-off land and therefore somewhat removed from reality. In The Last House on the Left, Craven transfers an allegory for the conflict to the heart of suburban, middle class America and effectively hammers home the very real consequences of violence.

As with the Vietnam War, there isn’t such a clear distinction between who the goodies and baddies are in The Last House on the Left. Though the parent’s revenge feels justified at first, as they continue to dispatch the murderers in just as gruesome a manner as their daughter died we see the line between hero and villain increasingly blurred. And again like ‘Nam, there is no clean and tidy conclusion. Mari’s parents have shown themselves capable of extreme violence and though revenge has been exacted, their daughter is still dead – a sad, disturbing end to a conflict from which neither side emerges victorious and the violence involved achieves nothing, just like the Vietnam War.