While shocking violence is unflinching and relentless in the remake of 1972's vile and brutal horror "The Last House on the Left," the 2009 version fails to be anything but a disappointment.

While Wes Craven’s "Last House of the Left" launched the horror director’s career by filming a rape-murder with sickening and almost documentary-like detail, it's a movie that could stand some improvements and made the perfect candidate for remake.

The story remains very similar to the original as it follows the lengths two ordinary people will go to exact revenge on the sociopaths who harmed their child.

Mari (Sara Paxton) a good virginal, family girl, and her more daring and promiscuous friend Paige, are kidnapped by a prison escapee and his crew. In her feeble attempt to escape, Mari ends up beaten, raped, and left for dead by the con while her friend is stabbed to death.

As the escaped-convicts leave the two in a forest seeking refuge on a dark and stormy night, Mari manages to drag herself back to parents John and Emma (Tony Goldwyn and Monica Potter) who fortunately reside nearby, at their remote lake house for a vacation.   

Realizing just what grim fate has befallen their beloved daughter, Mari's concerned parents quietly hatch a plan to make the three strangers suffer for their grisly transgressions.

Working from a script by Adam Alleca and Carl Ellsworth (Disturbia), director Dennis Iliadis puts his vaguely unique spin on the proceedings by prolonging the most grotesque, violent elements and making them more graphic. The result is not quite scary, but instead feels deplorably gratuitous – especially the rape scene in the woods, which goes on forever and seems intended for titillation.