Michael Bowen – Tripping Through Gateways

After the Hills Have Eyes, studios aimed for Craven’s Rape and Revenge flick, The Last House on the Left.

Like the Hills Have Eyes, this one hews extremely close to the source material. A virginal young woman hangs out with her more worldly friend, they meet a young man and hang out with him, only to discover he is not on his own. He is with his father and his gang. This leads to the rape and murder of her friend and her own rape and assumed death.

The gang shows up at her parent’s house during a storm seeking shelter. The girl shows up at the house and her parents realize they have her assailants in the house. The parents fight back to avenge their child and things get violent.

The original film really impacted me. I was ill during the rape and the tone of that film was unpleasant and incredibly gritty. This version? Just left me feeling nothing. I never found the film to cause the discomfort. It is too clean and modern. So even though the film is graphic, I just felt nothing.

This is actually too bad, as this is a fairly good cast.

I would not recommend this film. It adds nothing on the original and lacks any sense of emotion or urgency.

The world is abuzz over the arrival of a comet that will come unusually close to the earth. High schoolers Regina and Samantha are not into it and miss the show. They awake the next morning to discover that the world has changed.

Apparently, the comet came a little to close…people outside were reduced to dust, while most people indoors are simply disintegrating a bit more slowly, resulting in scary mutants. Only people, Such as Regina and Samantha, who were protected by certain environments were unaffected. After meeting up with a guy named Hector, the girls make contact with people who claim they can be of help…hint, they are not decent people.

Night of the Comet is a very teenage take on the whole “Last Person on Earth” concept. At first, there is little drama, as the girls were miserable putting up with their stepmother. So they celebrate, raiding a shopping mall. Of course, this does not last long and soon Regina, Samantha and Hector find themselves trying to escape a dark cabal of scientists. And it works pretty well. Catherine Mary Stewart and Kelli Maroney are engaging leads and the film has several great b-movie favorites.

If you start to heavily scrutinize “how stuff breaks down” if there is nobody around to run it, the films tidy ending probably falls apart…but it is a fantasy and it is a fun one.

Tag: Michael Bowen

Last Time Around (The Last House on the Left, 2009)

Home Alone (Night of the Comet, 1984)