Favourite Image Analysis

Taking my horror research into account, I’ve decided that my favorite choice of scene is from The Last House On The Left (2009). The scene from Chapter 13 is the one I’m focusing on, where John and Emma find Mary on the patio porch, realizing that she’s been physically and sexually abused. We can see how horrified they are; how desperate they are for Mary’s survival - a year prior to Mary’s attack, the Collingwoods suffered a loss of Ben Collingwood, Mary’s brother. Subsequently depicting their fear of loosing another child, which makes this photograph very touching.

Furthermore, the way in which Mary is holding John’s arm, it conveys how much love there is in this family, it’s extremely heart-warming to see – denoting that no matter how old you are, you always need the love and support from your family.  

Converging my thoughts to characters and representation, this scene visualises the male hero and the female surival (‘final girl’). Focusing on the male hero, I find it extremely promising how John is a doctor. Up until this point in the film we had only little faith in Mary’s survival but from this point onwards, we as an audience feel a sense of hope as we know that she is in safe hands with her parents. Not only that, Johns face in this photo visualises not only his anxiety for his daughter but also his sheer determination for saving her. Subsequent to this, he and Emma work together in revenge tactics in order to bring justice to their family. In terms of Mary being the female surivor, it’s extremely shocking because usually in horror films, the blondes are always the victims and the brunettes are the survivors – her brunette mate, Paige, was the female victim -  so this goes against generic expectations, making the film all the more surprising.

This film plays on male gaze a lot, which is a theory that Laura Malvey focuses on. This image illustrating it perfectly. Mary’s a young girl, very pretty with a lovely figure and blonde hair, which is commonly thought to be extremely attractive so this film has used male gaze in order to entice males for their own pleasure. She also said that films are predominantly showcasing male gaze due to the overwhelming amount of male producers, and in terms of The Last House on The Left, is is the case, the producer is Dennis Lliadis.