Stranger in Our House (1978)

          As did his peers John Carpenter and Tobe Hooper, Wes Craven made a pit stop in telefilms between his early independent efforts and his later success with big-budget movies. Yet while Carpenter made the respectable biopic Elvis (1979) and Hooper directed the passable Stephen King adaptation Salem’s Lot (also 1979), Craven marked time with this silly supernatural thriller starring Linda Blair. Reflecting none of the gonzo excess of his earlier pictures and none of the playful wit that made him famous in the ’80s and beyond, Stranger in Our House—also known as Summer of Fear—is wholly unimpressive from an artistic perspective. Yet because the movie is coherent and technically proficient, it demonstrated Craven’s ability to phone in a hack job as effectively as the next guy. Happily for horror-movie fans, Craven found his voice with 1984’s A Nightmare on Elm Street, blending the polished filmmaking he demonstrates here with the out-there qualities of his earliest endeavors while also introducing the crucial element of humor.

          Stranger in Our House revolves around the middle-class Bryant family, parents Carol and Tom plus kids Peter and Rachel (Blair). When Carol’s sister and her husband are killed in a car crash, the Bryants take in their newly orphaned niece, Julia Trent (Lee Purcell). She’s overtly wholesome, with her Ozarks accent and shy politeness, but Rachel spots trouble immediately, because—cliché alert!—an animal, specifically Rachel’s beloved horse, reacts badly to Julia’s presence. (As in all mediocre movies of this sort, nobody finds the animal’s reaction noteworthy except Rachel.) Things proceed very much according to formula. Julia steals Rachel’s boyfriend, Rachel finds weird artifacts among Julia’s belongings, and Rachel consults the neighborhood occult expert. (Wait, your neighborhood doesn’t have an occult expert?) Things move along at a fair clip, though nothing truly frightening or suspenseful happens. As for the acting, Blair is insufferably whiny, and Purcell’s adequate work gets undercut by the goofy final scenes.

Stranger in Our House: FUNKY

Kitty Can’t Help It (1975)

Later re-released as The Carhops (because some of the characters are waitresses at a drive-in restaurant), this abysmal sex comedy involves a group of young women trying to get their friend laid properly. The protagonist, Kitty (Kitty Carl), can’t find a man who satisfies her, so she shares her problem with buddies who include hookers and swingers, as well as carhops. All of them tell their boyfriends and/or husbands to sleep with Kitty, but none gets the job done. It’s not as if Kitty has compunctions about screwing her friends’ significant others. Instead, “comedic” circumstances intrude just when things get hot. In one scene, Kitty and a dude try humping in the desert, but Kitty freaks out when a large iguana appears nearby. Seeking to look macho, the dude not only picks up the iguana but also tries to kiss the lizard, which bites the dude’s tongue. And so on. Kitty Can’t Help It comprises one underwhelming scene after another, and most of the acting is shoddy. One exception is the versatile Jack DeLeon, whose psychopathic character torments Kitty whenever the filmmakers decide, unwisely, to include something serious; DeLeon’s portrayal is miles away from his best-known recurring role as an urbane homosexual on the sitcom Barney Miller. Yet the only genuinely famous person in the cast is Pamela Des Barres, who plays one of Kitty’s generous friends. Previously known as “Miss Pamela,” Des Barres is a notorious rock-music groupie who penned the definitive memoir on servicing popular musicians, I’m With the Band (1987). Weirdly, Wes Craven served as one of this schlocky film’s editors, even though he’d already directed his first horror movie, The Last House on the Left (1972).

Kitty Can’t Help It: LAME

The Hills Have Eyes (1977)

          After making his directorial debut with the gruesome revenge picture The Last House on the Left (1972), filmmaker Wes Craven made an unlikely detour into pornography—helming an X-rated flick titled The Fireworks Woman under the alias “Abe Snake”—before returning to his comfort zone of low-budget horror with The Hills Have Eyes. Infinitely more disciplined than his first movie, but still just as nasty, The Hills Have Eyes concerns an American family that imprudently wanders into the remote desert lair of a wilderness clan comprising inbred psychopaths. In principle, the picture should be extraordinarily frightening, a spiritual cousin to Tobe Hooper’s chilling The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (1974). However, Craven takes the opposite tack to Hooper’s disturbing verité approach, opting for a comic-book style that puts The Hills Have Eyes on a continuum with John Carpenter’s Assault on Precinct 13 (1976) and George Miller’s Mad Max (1979).

          In all three movies, clever writer-directors indulge themselves by depicting the hidden worlds that monstrous people have created. Yet while Carpenter brilliantly employed minimalism and Miller wisely focused on high-octane action, Craven tries to gene-splice adventure and horror. This experiment is only somewhat effective, because parts of The Hills Have Eyes are too cartoonish to be frightening, and others are too frightening to be cartoonish. Still, because Craven eventually found his sweet spot of ironic horror with the Nightmare on Elm Street and Scream franchises, it’s interesting to study The Hills Have Eyes as a marker along the path a director walked while perfecting his style.

          When the picture begins, the large Carter family travels through the Southwest in a station wagon pulling a camper. Despite warnings from a crusty gas-station attendant, patriarch Big Bob (Russ Grieve) takes his people into a remote area because he wants to explore a mine. Car trouble leaves the family stranded, making the Carters easy prey for a band of psychos led by Jupiter (James Whitworth). Skirmishes follow, eventually leading to all-out war. Jupiter’s band comprises deformed cannibals who wear animal skins and bone necklaces (even though they use modern devices including walkie-talkies), so the film asks viewers to believe these people could thrive for generations as scavengers. Similarly, like far too many horror movies, The Hills Have Eyes is predicated on One Bad Decision, namely Big Bob’s reckless trek into the boonies. Yet even with these narrative hiccups, The Hills Have Eyes is comparatively credible, since the Carters demonstrate smarts by using strategy and weapons against their assailants. The material involving Jupiter’s people is sillier, especially the excessive scenes involving a jeopardized baby. However, there’s no denying that The Hills Have Eyes possesses a certain pulpy allure.

          As for the actors, future E.T. star Dee Wallace, playing one of Big Bob’s daughters, has the most familiar face, while offbeat-looking Michael Berryman, portraying one of Jupiter’s killer kids, makes a disturbing impression. Like Craven’s The Last House on the Left, this picture became a cult hit and has enjoyed a long afterlife. Craven made a poorly regarded sequel, The Hills Have Eyes Part II (1985), and a 2006 remake earned a 2007 sequel of its own.

The Hills Have Eyes: FUNKY

The Last House on the Left (1972)

          Noteworthy as the directorial debut of Wes Craven, The Last House on the Left is one of those grungy ’70s artifacts with a certain degree of forbidden-fruit allure. Marketed as a cinematic ordeal that only the bravest viewers can endure, the picture is indeed quite gruesome, with plentiful gore decorating a sordid story about kidnapping, murder, rape, and revenge. Adding to the mystique of the picture is Craven’s signature dry wit, since many scenes in The Last House on the Left feature comical dialogue that borders on being sophisticated. When combined with the utterly nihilistic nature of the narrative, all of these factors could lead sensible people to mistake The Last House on the Left for a real movie. As a matter of fact, The Last House on the Left once was a real movie, at least in its original form—improbable though it may seem, Craven’s sleazefest is a loose and unauthorized remake of an Ingmar Berman film, The Virgin Spring (1960). Yet while Bergman used revenge as a springboard for expressing existential angst, Craven mostly opts for cheap thrills.

          The movie begins by establishing parallel storylines. In one, pretty 17-year-old Mari (Sandra Cassel) and her pal, Phyllis (Lucy Grantham), depart from the suburbs of New York to downtown Manhattan for a concert. In the other storyline, three escaped convicts—each of them depraved and psychotic—hole up in a Manhatten hotel room. When Mari and Phyllis unluckily try to score grass from one of the criminals, the women get drawn into a horrific ordeal. They are dragged from the city to the woods, raped, tortured, and murdered. Then, by way of a ridiculous coincidence, the killers invade the next home they encounter, which happens to belong to Mari’s parents. When the parents learn what’s happened, methodical payback ensues.

          Had Craven played this material straight, The Last House on the Left could have been genuinely horrifying. Alas, he makes bizarre tonal choices at every turn. The plentiful jokes feel distasteful, especially the broad-as-a-barn running gag of inept cops who keep driving right past the scenes of crimes. The film’s upbeat musical score (which seems more suitable for a children’s puppet show) further implies that Craven and his collaborators find carnage amusing. Finally, the over-the-top gore—including a shot of entrails being yanked from a corpse—adds another layer of unpleasant absurdity. So, even though Craven evinces some skill in terms of pacing and unexpected nuance, The Last House on the Left ultimately feels inconsistent, mean-spirited, and vulgar. Nonetheless, the picture became a cult favorite, even inspiring a 2009 remake, which Craven co-produced. And, of course, The Last House on the Left launched Craven’s career, which subsequently grew to include the Nightmare on Elm Street and Scream franchises.

The Last House on the Left: LAME