OUR FIRST HORROR FILM LEGEND to enter the Surgeons of Horror theatre is the late Wes Craven.
It is our endeavour to scrutinise and dissect his film career and study how Craven became an auteur of his craft.
We start with a Season that we will call The Early Years, whereby we will take a look at the films that paved the way to marking him as an icon in horror.
The first movie in question is, The Last House On The Left, made in 1972 along with fellow horror legend, Sean Cunningham (Friday the 13th) who was the films producer.
Between them they made a movie that would send shockwaves throughout the cinema industry for it’s low down and dirty cinematography.
It was a film that wasn’t shy from turning away from what was dubbed as gratuitous but perhaps not by modern standards.
The movie would be banned in certain countries including Britain and caused pandemonium in the auditoriums as people allegedly rushed the projection booths in protest.
This was all gold dust to the films producers who were bold enough to give it a nationwide release.
And word of mouth wouldn’t let this movie lay down to rest and it resurfaced in the video bootleg and slowly became the stuff of legend.
It also coined one of the most iconic taglines in movie history, “To avoid fainting. Keep repeating. It’s only a movie… only a movie…. Only a movie…”
So how does this film stand up in our surgery?
Does it still stand the test of time?
Check out the surgeons of horror podcast below for more thoughts and views.
https://player.whooshkaa.com/player/episode/id/98471?visual=true
Also available on iTunes
-Paul Farrell
