Reflections on a Craven classic: Last House on the Left

Trigger Warning: The film discussed in this blog contains scenes of graphic violence.

As many in the Gothic community know, horror director Wes Craven died a few days ago of brain cancer. A film legend, Craven established a number of iconic franchises and redefined not only the ‘slasher’ sub-genre but also the horror genre as a whole. This is not meant to be a tribute post – instead, I’m going to try to answer the question posited at the beginning of “Scream”: “what’s your favourite scary movie?”

Or, rather, I’m going to answer the amended version: “What scary movie written and/or directed by late master of horror Wes Craven do you think is particularly Gothic?”

“The Last House on the Left” (1972) was Wes Craven’s first mainstream horror film and one which is probably less familiar to a UK audience. This infamous ‘video nasty’ was refused a cinema release in the UK, and eventually a moral panic and the Video Recordings Act of 1984 lead to an almost 20 year ban of the film in England. Underground copies circulated but the ban was only officially lifted in 2002. To this day UK cinemas will not screen the uncut version.

The story itself is relatively straightforward as far as horror films go, especially compared to some of Craven’s later work (A burn victim who kills you in your dreams? Really?). It is ostensibly inspired by Ingmar Bergman’s 1960 film “The Virgin Spring”, itself lifted from a 13th century Swedish ballad. In "The Last House on the Left" flower-child teenager Mari Collingwood is about to turn 17 – she leaves for a concert with a friend while her doting parents prepare for her birthday party. She is a child becoming a woman, as well as a young adult half-stuck in the cultural disconnect between what her mother terms “the love generation” and the intense violence of a Vietnam-era world. Mari and her friend are kidnapped by a gang of criminals (self-appointed members of "the sex-crime business") and brutally raped and murdered in the woods. By a trick of fate the murderers later seek refuge at the home of Mari’s increasingly frantic parents who, on discovering their daughter’s death and their guests' guilt, enact a gruesome revenge.

Gang leader Krug (a precursor to Craven's Freddy Kruger) and friend in "The Last House on the Left" (1972)

“The Last House on the Left” is a film I always watch with relative optimism,  both because I’m fairly jaded and because I always forget how extreme it is. The rape and murder scenes are extensive and relentless, while many memorable elements that stick out are horrifically un-horrific: a pair of bumbling policemen experience various hi-jinks, scenes of sexual violence juxtapose shots of Mari’s parents laughing and making birthday cake, and the soundtrack echoes the cheerful and mellow folk tunes of the day.

I went to see a local theatrical screening recently - a late night viewing full of rowdy, laughing young adults. After a scant 80 minutes the end credits rolled and everyone in the almost packed theatre marched out in grim, horrified silence. For all of its dated effects and the cheesy 70s vibe the film remains potent enough to shatter anyone’s idea of a fun night at the movies. In a world where torture-porn has developed to outlandish heights, a simple tale of serial killers and revenge still hits us where we live.

This is perhaps because of the troubling catharsis the movie manages to achieve after such exhausting horrors, the kind of release which horror movies and revenge thrillers before and since have long attempted to exploit. The first two acts of the film are agony, a brutal litany of sexual violence and murder jarringly interrupted by grotesquely cheerful scenes of Mayberry-esque domesticity and hippie music. But when Mari’s parents finally realize that the murderers of their beloved child are in their power, all ambiguity disappears – they don’t hesitate.

A revenger's tragedy...

The “would you or wouldn’t you?” revenge question, the “doesn’t this make us no better than them?” problem of reciprocated violence appears with a vague moral gloss in most thrillers, or in horror films is often secondary to the character's desire to simply survive. But in “The Last House on the Left” there is something particularly raw and real about the monstrous yet vulnerable killers sleeping upstairs while Mari’s two middle-aged parents, passive and almost fragile in earlier scenes, rummage through their basement looking for the most intimidating weapons they can find, booby-trap and destroy their own house (a house still decorated for their daughter’s birthday), and go after the murderers with a weird mix of methodical determination and animal viciousness. “Just do it,” a gang member screams as Mari’s father hover’s menacingly over him with a chainsaw. The father doesn’t seem to hear. Mari's parents never question what they are doing or why. There’s nothing behind the Collingwoods’ eyes, not even fear or rage, now that their hope for the future is gone… and when they have exacted revenge they sit together in silence in the wreckage of their home, numbly unapologetic.

The film ends with the Collingwoods’ horrific satisfaction, the wretched relief of a job well-done, a sense of being unmade and remade into something horrible. If Freud’s ‘heimlich’ means a sense of homeliness and “belonging” to the home, than this final act tantalizingly twists concepts of the uncanny. This family’s home is no longer ‘home,’ but because of what was done to the Collingwoods and because of what they, in turn, did in response, Mari’s parents do now truly and inescapably belong in this bloody and shattered space. They are the true uncanny beings. The film is widely accepted as a commentary on the Vietnam War but remains relevant for new generations still preoccupied with violence. I won’t recommend “The Last House on the Left” casually (because, jeesh, you have to draw the line somewhere), but I offer it for consideration as an early reflection of a horror movie master’s preoccupation with monstrosity and identity, as well as a memorable stand-alone piece.

On horror movies: "It's like boot camp for the psyche. In real life, human beings are packaged in the flimsiest of packages, threatened by real and sometimes horrifying dangers, events like Columbine. But the narrative form puts these fears into a manageable series of events. It gives us a way of thinking rationally about our fears."  Wes Craven (1939-2015) directing "Scream 2" (courtesy of Dimension Films)

Kathleen Hudson is a PhD student at the University of Sheffield, studying servant narrative in early Gothic literature.  She's probably seen one too many movies...

Innsmouth Gold

The first book of H. P. Lovecraft’s work I owned was The Lurking Fear and Other Stories. I had purchased it because my friend had told me “The Lurking Fear” was absolutely terrifying (he was right). But this slim volume also contained “The Shadow Over Innsmouth” and this story has become one of my favorites. With Lovecraft’s 125th birthday shambling towards  us today, August 20th (happy birthday, you Gothic weirdo), I asked myself why I liked this story so much. Of all of his stories, why does “Innsmouth” give me such a horrid thrill?

I suppose some of it is my personal background. I grew up in Detroit where Prohibition-era bootlegging is a part our communal folklore, and on the very first page the narrator reveals that the government’s story about federal agents battling bootleggers in Innsmouth was fabricated to hide a darker secret. Moreover, my childhood in Detroit afforded me the opportunity to experience the smell of dead, rotting fish washed up under a pier. While I don’t have the extreme dislike of the sea and its denizens that Lovecraft had, it is true that I rarely eat fish unless it comes deep fried and drowned in lemon juice.

Perhaps my childhood memories  of watching Hammer horror films with my older brothers and later reading Poe are also factors. For “Innsmouth" is one of Lovecraft’s most Gothic stories. Now if I was to say, “Lovecraft and Gothic,” the first story that would come to mind would probably be “The Rats in the Wall.” That “Innsmouth” does not come to mind first, makes it also, I would argue, one of his best.

But I’m getting ahead of myself. What makes “Innsmouth” so Gothic? The curious narrator visits  the town of Innsmouth and finds it in a state of moldering decay that is the equal to any ruin found in Radcliffe. The Innsmouth locals are standoffish until he comes across a superstitious and chatty servant – I mean the superstitious town drunk, Zadok Allen. Once plied with bootleg alcohol, Zadok reveals – in great detail – the cursed history of the town. It all began when the sea captain Obed March brought back a strange object – and stranger ideas – from a remote island in the South Pacific. Eventually, Captain March took a second wife. While she may not have been locked in an attic like the first Mrs. Rochester, Obed’s second wife was never seen outside of the house. I don’t want to give too much away in case anyone hasn’t read it, but the curse involves sex and immortality (but no vampires). Like many Gothic heroines before him, the narrator flees through Innsmouth’s dark, labyrinthine ruins and swoons when he cannot help but look at a horrid scene.

The above is by no means a comprehensive list, but it gives an idea of how steeped in Gothic tropes the story is. And yet, “Innsmouth” is much more than a collection of borrowed  effects. It is also a very modern story. Obed March did not make his Faustian deal with the devil. Rather, he made his deal with an alien species making the story just as much science fiction as Gothic horror.

As modern as it seems given the above, the story is almost a hundred yeas old. Has it aged well? The answer is another part of why I like it so much. Someone with modern sensibilities (and not just a fan of old-fashioned Gothic horror) can still be unnerved by it because the most chilling part of the tale is not the traffic with an alien species. Rather, it is that at any moment this species could take over the planet. Simply put “Innsmouth” creates a world in which humans are neither masters and possessors of nature, nor chosen and protected by a benevolent God. Humans are just one of many species and certainly not the most powerful.

Moreover, Lovecraft makes this powerlessness very personal. If there is a moral in Lewis’ The Monk, it might be that one should be moral, but also worldly enough to avoid the snares laid by the devil. The tragic fall of Ambrosio might have been avoided if he was a little less virtuous, if he had been raised in a more open, worldly home, instead of a monastery. However, the final fate of the narrator in “Innsmouth” could not have been avoided, which changes his dramatic escape from being heroic to tragic and ironic. That humans are doomed and there is no way to avoid it makes “Innsmouth" is a wonderful allegory of the twentieth century existential crisis.

It is a true testament to Lovecraft’s talent that he was able to so seamlessly blend an old genre with modern fears and anxieties.


T. G. Rivard is a guest blogger.  His love of the Gothic started with watching Hammer horror films which in turn lead to the stories of Edgar Allan Poe, H. P. Lovecraft, Walpole and Radcliffe. He writes Gothic and weird tales and posts them on his blog, A Weird Miscellany.

International Gothic Association: Conference Report, "Gothic Migrations 2015"

The 12th Biennial International Gothic Association Conference: Gothic Migrations took place in Vancouver, Canada, from July 28th to August 1st this year. John Whatley of Simon Fraser University was the Conference Organizer, with funding and support provided by SFU Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences, SFU Department of English, and SFU Centre for Online and Distance Education. The University of Sheffield was represented by Dr. Angela Wright (Co-President of the IGA) and Dr. Andy Smith, as well as PGR students Kathleen Hudson and Kate Gadsby-Mace.

The Conference started off with an introduction by IGA co-presidents Dr. Angela Wright (University of Sheffield) and Dr. Catherine Spooner (Lancaster University). David Punter then awarded the Alan Lloyd Smith prizes to Joseph Crawford for best monograph for his work The Twilight of the Gothic? Vampire Fiction and the Rise of the Paranormal Romance, 1991-2012 (University of Wales Press, 2014), and to Glennis Byron and Dale Townshend for editing the best collection of essays in their work The Gothic World (Routledge, 2013).

On Wednesday the conference started in earnest and delegates participated in a wide selection of panels. Panel topics ranged from Medical Migrations to Transgothic to Neoliberal and Consumerist Gothic, to Gothic media, to Vampires and the Posthuman, to Gothic food and sensory experience. Notably, many papers provided diverse representations of international Gothic studies, exploring Canadian, Latin America, Southern, and Asian Gothic (among others).

The conference had three plenary speakers. Dale Townshend presented first on “16 October 1834: Architecture, Romance, and the Migration of the Gothic Imagination,” a paper on Gothic architecture and the British national identity (specifically reflecting the design of the Houses of Parliament). The next day Julia Wright offered her take on Gothic homelessness in her paper “Spooky Houses and the Unheimlich State.” Justin Edwards provided the final plenary talk with his discussion of kitsch and zombies in discourses of terrorism in “Migrations of Terror; or, Zombification and Everyday Terror/ism.”

There were readings from two fiction writers: David Chariandy, reading from his novel Soucouyant (2007), a work examining post-colonialism and dementia, and Wayde Compton, reading from his collection of short stories entitled The Outer Harbour (2014).

The conference also provided several round table discussions, including one on Southern Gothic, moderated by Charles Crow, and one on Vancouver Gothic Film, moderated by William Dow.

The IGA offered its delegates a range of activities outside of the conference. On Wednesday evening many attended the ‘Festival of Lights,’ a fireworks show at one of Vancouver’s beautiful beaches. On Thursday delegates were treated to an evening of “Liminal Darkness: A Celebration of Canadian Gothic Film.” Hosted by The Cinametheque Theatre, actor William Dow and academics Julia Wright and Karen Budra introduced the event by playing clips from the TV shows X-Files and Supernatural, both filmed and produced in Vancouver, while discussing some of the Gothic elements and specifically Canadian influences. They then screened the Canadian film Ginger Snaps (2000), a darkly humorous horror movie directed by John Fawcett about the relationship between two troubled sisters after one of them is bitten by a werewolf. Dealing with Gothic themes of body abjection, gender, familial trauma, and uncanniness, and filmed in a highly self-referential style, this movie has a particularly Canadian feel, problematizing space, identity, and transitions.

On Friday afternoon members of the IGA attended the Annual General Meeting. At this meeting Angela Wright and Catherine Spooner were re-elected as co-presidents of the IGA, the budget and plans for publications were discussed, and the host institution and theme of the next conferences were announced.

After the meeting delegates attended the Conference Banquet by Sunset Harbour Cruise, a two hour cruise around Vancouver harbor complete with a wonderful meal.

The Conference wrapped up with a few more panels and the closing meeting on Saturday. IGA 2015: Gothic Migrations was a highly successful conference, and we would like to give special thanks to the organizers and participants who made the whole week not only possible but also enjoyable and enlightening.


Papers presented by delegates from the University of Sheffield
Angela Wright presented: “‘Moving Forests’: Gothic migrations in ‘Mont Blanc’ and “The Triumph of Life’ by P.B. Shelley”

Andrew Smith presented: “Anglo-American migrations: Saul Bellow and the Gothic”

Kate Gadsby-Mace presented: “The Gothic Nation: Landscape, architecture and the Wanderer in William Henry Ireland’s Gondez the Monk (1805)”

Kathleen Hudson presented: “‘I say it is mine’: Narrative migration and colonization in Charlotte Dacre’s Zofloya, or The Moor”



Report composed by Kathleen Hudson

CFP: The Summer of 1816 Conference

‘The year without a summer’, as 1816 was known, was the year in which Percy Bysshe Shelley, Mary Godwin (later Shelley), Lord Byron, John Polidori and Claire Claremont came together, for the first time, in Geneva. This meeting of five creative minds at Lake Geneva in 1816 has been the subject of several films and a recent documentary. To date, however, it has not been the subject of an academic conference.

To commemorate the 200th anniversary of this extraordinary summer, the University of Sheffield will celebrate this unique meeting between these Romantic authors. We invite proposals that will explore the literary, biographical, scientific and historical readings of the Villa Diodati group.

We will offer a pre-conference day long event for PhD students and Early Career Researchers. The Centre for Archival Practice will also host a masterclass that takes the delegates to visit the Sheffield Archives which contain a wealth of material. Each keynote speaker will offer a masterclass focused on their internationally renowned skills as editors and researchers.

We invite panel proposals and proposals for individual papers that will explore the literary, biographical, scientific, Gothic and historical readings of the Villa Diodati group, but we also encourage papers that focus on other authors working in 1816. We also welcome suggestions for panels for the conference. Please send 200-word proposals as an email attached document to the conference email address 1816conference@sheffield.ac.uk by 15th January 2016. Please ensure that your proposal is headed with your paper title, your name, institutional affiliation, and an e-mail contact address.

Visit our website, https://1816conference.wordpress.com/ for more information, updates on the conference, help with finding accommodation, and registration instructions.

Four of our research centres are involved and we are grateful for their support:

The Centre for the History of the Gothic (http://www.sheffieldhistoryofthegothic.group.shef.ac.uk/)

The Centre for Nineteenth Century Studies (https://www.sheffield.ac.uk/nineteenthcentury)

The Centre for Archival Practices (http://cap.group.shef.ac.uk)

The Centre for Poetry and Poetics (http://cppsheffield.tumblr.com/)

Events, Projects, People, Publications: The Centre for the History of the Gothic

The Centre for the History of the Gothic was inaugurated in June 2014 and brings together colleagues from across the Faculty of Arts and Humanities who have an interest in the historical and national contexts in which the Gothic of the eighteenth century emerges and the influence that it had on the nineteenth century Gothic. Members are also interested in how the Gothic has developed from the eighteenth century to the present day and the various forms (poetic, theatrical, and other media), which it has come to inhabit.

Interested in Gothic Studies projects organised through the Centre?  Want to meet the University of Sheffield staff and students who produce academic and non-academic work in the Gothic?  Want to stay up to date with all the Gothic-related events and happenings?

Visit http://www.sheffieldhistoryofthegothic.group.shef.ac.uk/ to find out more! Come explore the site and learn all about The Centre for the History of the Gothic at the University of Sheffield.

Announcing: The Dark Arts Journal

The Dark Arts Journal: New and Emerging Voices in Gothic Studies is a new platform which exists to publish and promote upcoming and emerging voices in the exciting field of Gothic Studies. The journal is affiliated to Manchester Centre for Gothic Studies and to The Centre for the History of the Gothic, based at Sheffield University.

The journal operates on open access policies and has its own peer review process. Updates are published twice a year and previous editions will be available for download in pdf format.

The DAJ is part of the Dark Arts Network, a tool for allowing exciting young scholars to gain experience, gain connections and contribute to their field.

Issue One, Volume One will launch in October 24th 2015.

You can visit the journal’s website by clicking here.

You can also follow them on Twitter (@DarkArtsJournal) and find out more on the hashtag #GothsAssemble.

A Gothic Story: Revisiting Strawberry Hill

On a recent visit home, my mum wanted to take me out for the day, and I knew exactly where I wanted to go. Travelling from Essex, and on one of the hottest days this summer, I dragged my mum from one side of London to the other to visit a very Gothic location buried in the suburbs of Twickenham. Three hours, three trains, and a small detour via the Thames embankment later, we arrived at a Gothic house that you may just have heard of before: Strawberry Hill.

(Strawberry Hill, and Laura Fords ‘Days of Judgement (Cats I-VII))

In fact, for all lovers of the Gothic, Strawberry Hill is a very familiar name. Constructed in the eighteenth century by Horace Walpole, this house, or castle, stands as an apt reflection of the theatrical, eccentric, and Gothic tastes of its owner and designer. As well as reviving the Gothic style through his architectural creation, Walpole was also a politician, a collector, and of course the author of the first Gothic Novel, The Castle of Otranto, which was published anonymously in 1764.

The white walls and Gothic turrets of the castle are hard to miss, and even in Walpole’s own time people found this distinct building strange and out of place. However, once built, Walpole reveled in the tourism that his castle and vast collection of pictures, sculpture, furniture, and artefacts inspired. In fact, his castle proved such a popular attraction that he introduced a ticketing system for visitors, and even created a guidebook that was printed at Strawberry Hill’s very own printing press.

It is an edited version of this book that serves as both ticket and guide for modern visitors. You are encouraged to explore the house independently, although there are plenty of helpful volunteers scattered throughout the rooms, and with a wealth of knowledge, who are very happy to answer any questions.

A Description of Strawberry Hill

Today, like Walpole had intended, the house still offers a very Gothic and indeed a theatrical journey. Beginning with the ‘gloomth’ of the hall and staircase, in which ‘by a cord of black and yellow, hangs a Gothic lanthorn’[1] that provides a suitably gloomy atmosphere, each visitor is then guided through a multitude of varied and carefully crafted rooms, before finally finding themselves in the grand splendour of the Gallery. The Gallery is awash with lavish red wallpaper, the ceiling covered with intricately designed, white fan-vaulting laced with gold, and containing five recesses hung with paintings and covered with small mirrors. It is truly a journey from darkness to light.

This was actually my second visit to Strawberry Hill, but it was just as fascinating as the first. The ongoing restoration of the house has meant that more rooms are open to the public and restored to their eighteenth-century and Gothic brilliance. Moreover, the house is currently home to an exhibition of contemporary sculpture by Laura Ford. Many of Ford’s sculptures on display here were made especially for this exhibition and with the history and atmosphere of Strawberry Hill in mind.

Ford and her creations are an ideal choice for the first exhibition of contemporary sculpture at Strawberry Hill. Her sculptures have been described as ‘faithful representations of fantasy with sometimes bitter sweet and menacing qualities mixed with tenderness,’ and also as being ‘intensely crafted but playful.’[1] These are descriptions that seem fitting for the Gothic which is often formulaic but playful, terror-inspiring and yet also theatrically camp. Ford’s creatures draw on these themes through their distinctly child-like and anthropomorphic qualities, appearing as animals, dolls, or children playing dress up, and that engage with, and are enhanced by, their Gothic surroundings.

'Medieval Cloud Girls'

Walking through the house and its gardens, then, each visitor is not only met with Walpole’s Gothic architecture and distinct interior design, but also the various contemporary sculptures that have been specifically placed in each room or part of the garden.  Outside, on the main lawn, a set of cat sculptures cast in bronze and entitled ‘Days of Judgement (Cats I-VII)’ stand against the white backdrop of Strawberry Hill. Inside the rooms of the house, the sculptures appear simultaneously playful and creepy, feeding off of their Gothic setting. For example, upon entering the house, and finding yourself in the gloomy hall, you are greeted with a sculpture titled ‘Sorrow Filled Cat I.’ Standing in a corner beneath the staircase, this cat is attired in a dress and bonnet, staring sorrowfully upwards and appearing like a child’s toy and uncannily alive.

'Sorrow Filled Cat I'

So, what are you waiting for? Walpole’s Gothic castle awaits.  

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[1] http://www.lauraford.net/index.php/information

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[1] Horace Walpole, A Description of Strawberry Hill (Strawberry Hill: The Strawberry Hill Trust, 2015), p. 12. 


Mary Going is a PhD student studying Gothic Literature at the University of Sheffield.  She is the thing the monsters have nightmares about.