I SPIT ON YOUR GRAVE (2010)

Directed by: Steven R Monroe

Starring: Sarah Butler, Daniel Franzese, Chad Lindberg, Jeff Branson, Andrew Howard, Rodney Eastman

Jennifer Hills (Butler), an aspiring writer from New York, travels upstate and hires a cabin so she can finish her novel. Her independent, free spirit attitude is perceived by some of the locals as brazen sexuality and a group of friends break into her cabin to “teach her a lesson”. Soon things have gotten way out of hand and Jennifer is the victim of a prolonged and horrific gang rape, which is made worse when she confronts Sheriff Storch, who turns out to be the leader of the gang and subjects her to a second attack, which she barely survives by throwing herself into the river. The gang try to find her, hoping that her corpse will wash up on the shore, and over time gradually go back to their normal lives. But Jennifer isn’t dead, and has only one murderous goal in mind – complete and utter vengeance...

Meir Zarchi’s original I Spit On Your Grave (aka Day of the Woman) is one of the most renowned “video nasties” and one of the few films, up until recently at least, that remained on the BBFC (the UK equivalent of the NPAA)’s banned list. It is one of the few of the video nasties that lived up to that moniker. When I heard that a remake was in the works, I couldn’t think of anything which could be more redundant. The original was still a shocker, one that, thanks to an endurance breaking rape sequence was pretty difficult to sit through with eyes open. What on earth could they achieve by remaking it?

Well what it does do is vastly improve the pacing of the story. The original, true to it’s time, was a meandering tale which took a while to get going and even after the rape(s) it took an age for the vengeance scenes to kick in. The remake makes the whole thing a lot more punchy and direct and more palatable for the new generation of Horror fans.

Let’s cut to the chase and mention those rape scenes – while they aren’t as harsh as those in the original film (which are harsh for the shear amount of screen time devoted to them), they are still pretty grim, and get worse when the Sheriff gets involved. Ignorance and sexual insecurity are the root of the situation – what would have been everyday social interaction for Jennifer is seen as a woman who thinks she’s better than she ought to be. They take an innocent interaction between Jennifer and Matthew, a mentally challenged member of the group who fixes her plumbing, as an open invitation to intrude into her life. There is a pack mentality on display here. As individuals, none of them would have bothered to get too close (except for the voyeur, but he wouldn’t have made himself known to Jennifer). As a group they bring out the worst in each other, egging each other on and making the situation more extreme by the minute.

Like the original version of the film, after the rape incidents, the perpetrators get back to their old lives of doing nothing much. Here we get the main difference between the two films. In the original, Jennifer made a point of coming back and carrying on as normal, as if the rape had never happened. The gang were confused and wary by her silence, while she gets close to them using her overt sexuality to catch them off guard and kill them. In the remake, Jennifer is very much inspired by the likes of J-Horror movies such as The Ring/The Grudge, as well as the devious deathtraps concocted for the SAW movies. Actually, her deathtraps are the sort of thing I’d expect McGuyver to come up with, if he only had some fishing line, duct tape, quick-lime and some gardening shears...Jennifer is now a phantom-like figure, appearing and disappearing at will, only appearing to abduct each of the gang. She is now the Boogeyman, and you begin to wonder if you’re not meant to sympathise with the rapists now – especially the Sheriff, whose innocent family might pay the consequences of his actions.

The problem with the film is the same as nearly all rape-revenge movies: after being raped, Jennifer has to plumb hitherto unexplored depths within herself to find the resolve and resourcefulness to carry out her revenge. Jennifer is a much meaner, forceful, confident person in her wrath, so her rape could be seen as an empowering rite of passage (however, see ISOYG: VENGEANCE IS MINE).

Technically, the film is very well made – the acting is good, especially from Andrew Howard as Sheriff Storch and Danielle Franzese as Stanley. As for Sarah Butler, she is wholly committed to the role of Jennifer so that the audience truly feels for her plight. She also sells the latter scenes well, portraying Jennifer as someone who is broken inside somehow, her features passive and glass-like until the rage bubbles over. The scene where she sits impassively, listening to Matthew’s pleas for forgiveness, even acknowledging that he didn’t want to be part of it, before exploding in rage yelling “That’s not enough!” is pretty unsettling.

I’ve developed a fascination over the past few years with what would happen to the “last girl” of horror movies after the credits roll. What happens to these women next, after surviving a massacre, after having to kill a monster in order to survive? It is one aspect that most horror movies skip over. Most horror movie sequels usually only carry over the monster rather than any surviving characters. I mention this because I Spit on your Grave ends in a very abrupt and ambiguous way, leaving the audience wondering about the fates of certain characters and especially how much of a monster Jennifer herself has become.

THE VERDICT

Like City of Life and Death, I ummed and aah’d over watching this, but was kind of glad I did in the end because it turned out to be a very well executed horror. The home-invasion/rape sequences aren’t easy to sit through (nor should they be) but ensure the ensuing kills are very cathartic.

7 out of 10 (MikeOutWest)