Sat. March 14

It would be wrong to slam the re-made version of "Last House on the Left." Hey, the rest of the critical world is doing a pretty good job of it, and, I haven't seen it. From what I''ve read, I don't think I would have any interest. But we did see Wes Craven's 1972 original - twice - and it was the creepiest movie I'd ever seen. Higher even than the original "Texas Chainsaw Massacre." It truly had a cinema verite quality about it. I knew it wasn't true, but I really felt at some level this was a documentary - that suspension of disbelief thing. Primarily this is because the evil-doers were so naturally evil and the young girls so genuinely terrified. Basically, the girls are on their way to see a concert by Bloodlust (standin for Alice Cooper, we always presumed) and stop to by pot (drugs bad, even back then!) at the home of three scuzzy new friends (in photo) they've met. Uh-oh. They end up in the woods. Humiliation and horror follow - and I know you've seen humiliation and horror with the "Hostel" and "Saw" movies, but consider the time frame, 37 years ago and try to put yourself in a pre-"Friday the 13th"/"Halloween" mindset.

"The Last House on the Left" played off the Manson family aura, the unsettling Vietnam era mindset, the need to escape all of that. And, of course, it unearthed the unspeakable horror that happens when just one mistake is made. It's also a revenge flick. The folks - a mixed gender group - who perpetrate the torture and horror upon the young girls end up at the house (last one on the left) of one of their parents. And, when the parents, learn the truth, a few tables are turned and the results - though satisfying in that movie-vengeance way - are ugly. Back in the day, the Hartford Courant editorialized against its "lingering gore, senseless cruelty, sadism, and fetishism." The Christian Science Monitor wrote: "This kind of film can do no one any good." Gene Siskel of the Chicago Tribune objected not to the "graphic violence per se, but to the fact that this movie celebrates adult male abuse of young women." On the other hand, we're pretty sure the late Lux Interior of the Cramps, really loved it. (I did an essay in 1999 for the Boston Globe, when an entire book was written and released, devoted to the film.) It's at the Coolidge Corner Theatre at midnigh Saturday March 14. Tickets: $9.75.

290 Harvard St., Brookline, 617-734-2000 www.coolidge.org