The ’70s were an era of radical change in all styles of motion pictures.  Mainstream, big-budget fare such as Midnight Cowboy and A Clockwork Orange pushed the envelope in terms of violence and sexuality, drawing praise as often as criticism.  Looking back at these movies today, it’s often hard to see what all the fuss was about.  Of course, horror cinema of the time had its share of controversial films as well.  One of the most notorious  was The Last House on the Left, the directorial debut of the legendary Wes Craven.

Released in 1972, The Last House on the Left was one of the first of what has become a quite popular horror subgenre: the rape/revenge flick.  Most rape/revenge films follow a common blueprint¾Act One: A woman is brutally beaten, raped, and left for dead; Act Two: The victim recovers from her ordeal and prepares to avenge herself; Act Three: The woman systematically tortures and kills her attackers.  A common variation has the rapists kill the victim during the assault and her family takes revenge.

The Last House on the Left follows this alternate formula in telling its tale.  Small-town girl Mari Collingwood (Sandra Cassel) decides to celebrate her seventeenth birthday by attending a rock concert in the big city with her friend Phyllis (Lucy Grantham), a "bad" girl whose blue-collar family background worries Mari’s parents.  When the girls decide to try score some pot, they encounter Sadie, Krug, Weasel, and Junior, a thrill-seeking gang of escaped convicts on the run from the police and looking for a little action.  Of course, if Mari and Phyllis had not been "walking on the wild side," they would have never run into trouble.  This is another ingredient of most modern horror flicks: the punishment element.  But punished they are.  After raping, torturing, and murdering the girls, the sociopaths dump their bodies in the woods near Mari’s house and attempt to flee town.  In an ironic twist of fate, they end up at Mari’s house as guests.  I think you can see where this is going.

CLAUSTROPHOBIA.

I even HATE typing that long damn word!  It is one of my, and I'm sure a LOT of people's, greatest fears.  Nobody wants to be stuck in an elevator, just like nobody wants to be stuck on a planet filled with pod people.
 
Yes folks, this is the third remake of 1956's "Invasion of the Body Snatchers", so in this day and age of remakes [or "Re-imaginings...Whatever!] Warner Brothers has brought upon us an invasion for the new millennia!
 
I was not too gung-ho about seeing this right away, was more apt to eventually rent it, but I woke-up Sunday and realized I didn't have any plans, so I called my pal Thump and asked if he'd like to catch "The Invasion" with me, and off we went.
 
The movie starts with a frantic Nicole Kidman ransacking a looted pharmacy, going thru all the shelves, naming all sorts of interesting sounding "Dolls", she finds a few, pockets 'em and keeps looking.  Then we see her opening a 2 litre of "Mountain Dew" and gulping away as if her life depended on it.  She whispers "Must stay awake...Can't go to sleep..."
[FADE OUT....CUE CREDITS]
 
Ruben sits up in his seat. "Oh THIS is gonna be GOOD!" I think to myself, and I was right!

The original version of The Toolbox Murders is a perfect example of what a slasher flick should be. Made in 1978, this film does everything it needs to do and does it very well. It has a straightforward plot, good acting, and nuanced visual storytelling. They truly don’t make them like this any more. And though you hear that phrase often, this time there is actual evidence.

Tobe Hooper’s remake—oops, I think "reimagining" is the term they use in Hollywood these days—proves this point. Hooper filled his version of this tale with all sorts of confusing paranormal mumbo jumbo about a cursed apartment building. But the original version of The Toolbox Murders is about a deranged religious fanatic using tools from his toolbox to kill women. That’s pretty much it. Nothing fancy about it, and yet it’s a much better film. Repeat after me, Hollywood: Less is more.

The toolbox murderer wears a ski mask and is terrorizing an apartment complex in Los Angeles. Any woman living there whom he deems immoral ends up on the wrong end of a tool. And this guy has a pretty broad definition of immoral. From drinking too much to dancing half naked in front of an open window, it doesn’t take much to incur this man’s wrath.