10 Horror Movies Audiences Couldn't Handle

The original r**e and revenge horror, Wes Craven’s The Last House on the Left offered society exploitative thrills, but also challenged it to take a closer look at itself.

In the film, Mari (Sandra Peabody) and Phyllis (Lucy Grantham) head out to the big city for a gig, but their search for a little reefer to supplement their fun leads them into the clutches of a gang of psychos who assault, beat, and abduct them. They take the girls to the woods near Mari's house, where they are toyed with further and eventually killed. The gang pose as travelling salesmen and seek refuge at Mari’s family home, but when her parents realise who they are and what they’ve done, all bets are off. We’re talking chainsaws, electrocutions, and bitten-off penises.

The film provoked strong audience reactions in every cinema that would show it, and brought forth a moral outcry that would pave the way to the Video Nasties era. In fact, it traumatised audiences so severely, the tagline adopted for promotional material was: “To avoid fainting, keep repeating ‘It’s Only A Movie, It’s Only A Movie…’”