7. The Last House On The Left
Plunging right into Video Nasty territory at number seven, we have Wes Craven's The Last House on the Left. Craven's second film is loosely based on Bergman's The Virgin Spring, but lacks pretty much any of the artistry found in its source material. The film sees two young teenagers become captured by a gang of insidious criminals who humiliate, rape, torture and murder them. This gang of villains then find themselves (somehow) in the homes of one of the girls, the parents of whom eventually figure out what this gang have done and set upon a revenge fueled rampage to bring the criminals to justice. The Last House on the Left is put together very poorly, lacking anything of real merit in terms of script or aesthetic value. What makes it an important film is quite simply how far it was willing to go with its representation of sadistic violence. Ranging from an uncomfortable sequence where the girls are forced to wet themselves to a downright objectionable rape scene that culminates in cannibalistic murder; this film doesn't pull any punches. While it was simply heavily censored in most countries, in the UK it become embroiled in the Video Nasty scandal of the 1980s. Initially it was refused a certificate by the BBFC in 1974, and as such was effectively banned from distribution. Briefly the film got around this by being released without certificate on video, however the Video Recordings Act of 1984 came crushing down on it like a ton of morally pious bricks, resulting in the film being refused distribution in the UK until 2002 with cuts (it was released fully uncut in 2008). Wes Craven would go on to direct some classic pieces of the horror genre's canon but The Last House on the Left remains his most daring, if sloppy, piece of work.