Last House on the Left

Horror master Wes Craven's powerful debut was this controversial low-budget remake of Ingmar Bergman's {|The Virgin Spring|} (1959). One of the more brutal rape-revenge films, it is unflinchingly explicit in its depiction of the vicious abuse and slaughter of two teenage girls at the hands of a Mansonesque gang of criminals. The revenge segments are no less shocking, including a murder by bucksaw, a throat slashing, and an oral castration. The acting is amateurish and the cinematography is bargain-basement, but something in the almost documentary-like nature of the film makes it devastating nonetheless. Along with {|Night of the Living Dead|} (1968) and {|The Texas Chainsaw Massacre|} (1974), it is one of the early classics of graphic horror.