daha1120

Bland, contrived, and dumbed down. William Hurt's oscar winning turn reminds me of Al Pacino in Gigli and my wife points out one of the major plot points is suspiciously similar to what's going on in Cool as Ice starring Vanilla Ice. Both of these other movies are far more entertaining than A History of Violence.

It would be unfair to call this a knockoff of Last House on the Left because its pretty different, besides David Hess basically reprising his role from that movie and the themes of sexual degradation. This seemed to be more an attempt to turn Last House into its own sub-genre, Hessplotation lets call it. But whereas the rape in Last House was really really really far away from ever being mistaken for sexy, this movie was generally putting titillation ahead of torture. It really was shot well and some of the acting was surprisingly good, but the twist was insulting and the gore pathetic. On the other hand, if you're looking for a movie from 1980 that perfectly evokes the spirit of the 70's, you'd be hard pressed to do better than this. Best paired with bumps of coke off the end of a blade.