Ten years ago, I happened to rent a little film on DVD that many have called a brutal revenge flick. I have always liked films that had the revenge theme, so I gave it a chance. That film was the 1978 version of I Spit on Your Grave. The reviews for the film were both positive for its feminist qualities, and negative because of it’s brutally, graphic gore and violence. In the era of remakes, it was bound to be a film that would eventually be rehashed, and so in 2009 production began on the remake, which is just as brutal and blood curling as the original and received the same amount of disgust and praise from critics every where.
The story for the remake is very similar to the original with a few extra things added in to update the film for our time. Jennifer Hills (Sarah Butlier) rents an isolated cabin in the Louisiana wilderness to write a novel. She makes a quick stop at a local backwoods gas station to get fuel. While there she meets the men that work there. One of them approaches her with a proposal and she denies him as bucket of water is knocked over and he is soaked by it. Jennifer makes her way off to the cabin; however she made the simple mistake of telling the men where she was headed. Enraged by being embarrassed by the incident at the gas station, the men go to the cabin and force themselves upon her. She gets away and seeks help only to find that help is not coming. She is then brutally raped. Jennifer knows that she is about to lose her life; she jumps off a bridge before the men try to shoot her. Months later, and no body found, the men think they got away with her murder. However, all this time Jennifer has been nursing herself back to health in the wilderness, and planning her revenge.
My thoughts are mixed on this film. I found the original to be more of a film that can be considered a movie that is part of the feminist moment. Today, at least in America, women have just as much rights as men do. In certain parts of the country they choose not too, but the law still gives them the choice. I see this remake as more of an eye for an eye deal, a revenge story. While elements, such as computers and cell phones make there way into this film, that is about the most updated it gets. Sure, rape is not a good thing and what Jennifer goes though is sickening and unsettling, but in the end what she does to the men that rape her is even more unsettling. There is another thing in this film that bothered me a little, one of the men who rapes Jennifer has a disability, it’s not mentioned as to what he has, but it seems like some type of autism. He does not want to rape her, but is forced into it by the men. They want to witness him lose his virginity. He tries so hard not too, but he is forced and pressured to do so. I figured the character of Jennifer would have some kind of sympathy for him, after all people with certain disabilities are capable of doing anything good or bad, but their decision making can be influenced easily by others. These are my many problems with the script, not to say that the film is bad; but some of the idea I don’t think correspond with the overall message the film is trying to display.
On the upside, the story does have decent pacing and a lot of suspense, especially during the prolonged rape scene, which at times seems like over kill for the sake of being shocking. However, it works and when all is said and done and its Jennifer’s turn to get revenge, we almost forget she existed while the rapists deal with their guilt. Then out of nowhere she comes back with a vengeance like no other.
The overall feel and make of the film is good. It has that dark uncomfortable feel the whole way through and the filmmaker’s use of lighting and locations really gives the film that uneasy feeling. The acting in the film is decent, but nothing special, the actors take their roles and make good of them, even if the characters are not so good themselves. The brutally of the effects is what really makes the film grisly and gore infested. There are scenes of torture beyond imagination; things that I don’t think have ever been done before in horror films. The effects are really good, but be warned it’s not for the weak at heart.
The Blu-ray disc has a few special features such as audio commentary with Director Steven R. Manroe and Producer Lisa Hansen and a featurette titled The Revenge of Jennifer Hills: Remaking a Cult Icon. There is also the films teaser and theatrical trailers, deleted scenes, radio spots and more. A digital copy of the film is also provided with the Blu-ray also.
The remake of I Spit on Your Grave is a good horror film, yet I’m not sure it’s true message can get across as one that is meant to serve a purpose. It’s a film about revenge, yet in the end we’re left not sure if two wrongs really make a right. In the original film we say the men got what they deserved, in this film the normal men got what they deserved, but we’re left with that bitter taste in our mouth about the boy with the disability. There is a lot a gore and unique and original ways in which Jennifer deals with the men who raped her. Horror fans will love this film simply for it’s story and the gore involved, fans who need a little bit more will probably agree with me that while it’s a decent film it does not hold up to the original and what the 1978 version was trying to do for it’s time. Don’t get me wrong it’s a good horror film, but I don’t think it gets the point across as trying to be more than just another torture porn horror flick.
– Horror Bob
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