The Last House on the Left [VHS]
FutureNightmarecreator andScreamweaver Wes Craven's  film debut is a primitive little production that rises above its cut-rate  production values and hazy, grainy patina via its grimly affecting portrait  of human evil infiltrating a middle-class household. The story is adapted  from Ingmar Bergman'sThe Virgin Spring, but the film has more in  common with Sam Peckinpah'sStraw Dogsas it charts the descent of a  harmless married couple into methodical killers. A quartet of criminals--a  distorted version of the nuclear family--kidnaps a pair of teenage girls and  proceeds to ravage, rape, torture, and finally brutally murder them in the  woods, unwittingly within walking distance of their rural home. The killers  take refuge in the girls' own home, but when the parents discover just who  they are and what they've done, they plot violent retribution.Along with George Romero'sNight of the Living Deadand Tobe Hooper'sTexas Chainsaw Massacre, Craven helped redefine American horror with  this debut--all three movies portray modern society crumbling into madness  and horror. But, unlike his fellow directors, Craven gives his film an  uncomfortable verisimilitude, setting it squarely in the heartland of modern  America. While at times it's awkward and inconsistent, with distracting comic  interludes, his handling of the brutal horror scenes is unsettling, and the  death of the daughter is an unexpectedly quiet and lyrical moment.--Sean  Axmaker