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Title: I Spit on Your Grave (Millennium Edition) (2002) |
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Review of I Spit on Your Grave (Millennium Edition)
- Writer-director Meir Zarchi's controversial story of rape and revenge has lost none of its ability to shock viewers since it first gained notoriety in the late '70s. Camille Keaton (grand-niece of Buster Keaton and, later, Zarchi's wife) stars as a young woman who is terrorized and then brutally assaulted by four men while on vacation. After slowly pulling herself together, she methodically tracks down and butchers each of the perpetrators. Zarchi's film has been consistently accused of celebrating violence against women, and while the rape scenes are graphic, they also lack the voyeuristic qualities that earmark other similarly plotted exploitation films. If anything, Zarchi is guilty of awkward scripting; the dialogue is leaden, and Keaton's transformation from victim to avenger is too swift. But to label him a pornographer is wrong, and while the film is challenging--perhaps more than most audiences can bear--its depiction of the psychology of violence is undeniably powerful. --Paul Gaita
Amazon.com
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Comments for I Spit on Your Grave (Millennium Edition)
- Posted on 2008-06-25
Utterly Useless
I went into this film with high hopes, being that it is considered one of the most controversial films of all time. However, this movie has absolutely no redeeming qualities. The acting is absolutely the worst I have ever seen, and the storyline is non-existant. Furthermore, there is absolutely no character development. Yes, the rape scenes are graphic and do get a little hairy, no pun intended. But other than that, this is your run-of-the-mill revenge story. Problem is, revenge has been done better a million times over in other movies. Don't waste your time with this one.
Score: 1
- Posted on 2008-06-25
Sadistic Attack = Sadistic Revenge
Controversial and hated by critics and feminists, it's easy to see what people found offensive here. A very prolonged and cruel rape scene that is hardly a pleasure to watch. A series of acts of revenge that are justified but methodical and lacking in emotion.ISOYG is not a badly made film- the problem is the realism of the sexual assault that provokes the less than realistic acts of revenge by Camille Keaton on her antagonists. Watching a 20+ minute scene of a pretty young woman being brutalized and tormented by four rural thugs is no picnic, and maybe credit should be given for portraying such a horrible act in a way that is unglamorous and very unsettling as it should be.
After suffering with our victim, it's not hard to lust as she does for the blood of her attackers. You may find the revenge less than satisfying and cliched and you may find ISOYG a little overhyped and overlong..
Score: 3
- Posted on 2008-06-19
I Spit on Your Grave
It's difficult to compliment or be positive in any way about Meir Zarchi's controversial film, because even though it does come down on the side of the female victim, her ordeal is so distressing and brutal that one feels unclean for choosing to sit down and be a willing observer to it.
Most people will be aware that this film is a rape/revenge scenario and probably will be aware that it has courted much outrage since it first shocked audiences in the late 70's, but few people will be privy to the fact that the abuse of Jennifer Hills (Camille Keaton) goes on for at least the first third of the movie and as such it is an extremely uneasy amount of time for a viewer to sit through. So much so, that when she enacts her revenge, it seems almost standard...a given. In fact it would be difficult to imagine the film if the producers had abandoned to revenge conclusion, as it acts as such a release of the pressure built up by the horrific preceding events.
"I Spit on Your Grave" is a title that gained much of it's notoriety from the hysterical "Video Nasties" bill that was circulated in Britain in the early 1980's. It appeared alongside movies such as "Cannibal Holocaust", "Zombie Flesh Eaters" and "The Beast in Heat". But while the majority of the Video Nasties were mere exploitation schlock (that in most cases seem remarkably harmless now), Zarchi's effort has retained it's extremely disturbing atmosphere because unlike the undead of "Zombie Flesh Eaters", the funny looking Nazi creation in "The Beast in Heat" and to some degree the outrageous cannibal tribes in the first film, rape and rapists are very real. However, I must say that the rapists in "I Spit on Your Grave" are so one-dimensional bad guys that it's hard to reconcile them to the real world. That aside, the movie is a story about an event that affects many women (although probably not to the vile extent that Keaton's character goes through).
The basic plot is very simple, there is no subtly here. In short form, a young female journalist is abducted while she is on vacation and is subjected to a series of appalling assaults on her person. Afterward, she manages to get herself together and embarks on a brutal revenge against her attackers. The movie is an extremely violent, dirty and utterly depressing experience...and this is actually the project's strong point. I watched this alone one evening and I came away from it feeling awful, feeling dirty and even ashamed. In fact, I could barely bring myself to tell my girlfriend what movie I watched when I was asked.
No movie before or after has ever had that effect on me.
In some ways, I believe I felt some of the feelings that a rape victim feels after such a disgusting event; dirty, depressed, angry, ashamed and utterly disillusioned with human beings...albeit to a relatively minuscule level admittedly. I could walk away from the DVD, but the experience stayed with me for days afterward. This end-of viewing feeling was certainly the overwhelming result from the 100 minute running time.
Although, I personally don't consider "I Spit on Your Grave" to be an exploitation film, at least not in the same manner as "Ilse: She wolf of the SS", or the myriad of Cannibal / Zombie flicks, it still suffers from the same weaknesses usually endured by low budget exploitation movies...bad acting, bad dialogue and poor advances in scripting and they take from the film, somewhat inevitably.
There also have been some who have attempted to portray "I Spit on Your Grave" as a 'pro-rape' fantasy, but I find that very hard to accept. Zarchi presents the attackers as incredibly cruel and without a shred of decency that it's impossible to imagine any viewer siding with their point of view. As difficult as "I Spit on Your Grave" is to look at, the overall impulse is to identify with the innocent victim. Zarchi, who prefers the more positive title of "Day of the Woman" to the sensationalist "I Spit on Your Grave", has always maintained that he had tried to manifest a 'pro-feminist' angle with his film and is shocked that some people would think that he (or anyone) would attempt to make a pro-rape movie. This PR spin seems a little naive in the world of pedophile rings and violent internet porn, but such things were unknown when Zarchi set out to make his opus. The director, in fact, claims that he set out to make the film after helping a victim of rape in New York.
In conclusion, if you believe you have the stomach for it (and I don't mean that in a macho way) "I Spit on Your Grave" offers the viewer an experience that no other film will give, if you chose to go down that road. But for most audiences, I feel that this experience will simply prove to be too much.
Score: 3 - Posted on 2008-06-11
A Review from Dr. Joseph Suglia, The Greatest Author in the World
Over the past four years, we have seen a slew of remakes, many of them reviving cinemas of cruelty: THE WICKER MAN (2006), THE HILLS HAVE EYES (2006), THE FOG (2005), ASSAULT ON PRECINCT 13 (2005), DAWN OF THE DEAD (2004), THE TEXAS CHAINSAW MASSACRE (2004). On Friday, former HAPPY DAYS star Ron Howard announced that he will resuscitate yet another horror film classic: I SPIT ON YOUR GRAVE (also known as DAY OF THE WOMAN) (1978).
Films are dreams, often collective ones. The original I SPIT ON YOUR GRAVE offered the realization of a womanish wish-fantasy: A rape victim castrates and murders her violators. The film was a misguided and yet nonetheless earnest stab at feminist cinema, marred by the director's immature desire to see Camille Keaton naked (international cult figure and star of ISOYG).
The revised I SPIT ON YOUR GRAVE, Howard stressed, will take a more 'politically correct' direction. The new victim-avenger, played by Laura Prepon (best known in the role of Donna on THAT '70's SHOW), will not appear naked in a single frame of the motion picture (her contract bears a 'no-nudity' codicil). In addition, Howard explained, her character will assassinate no one. Her attackers will be instead brought to tears and acts of contrition.
She presents one of her rapists with a lemon meringue pie. For another, she performs a 'Dance of Shame', wearing a flowing white dress and orchids in her tresses. Her attackers, blubbering, fall to their knees and beg her forgiveness.
Esteemed film critic Michael Medved publicly congratulated Howard on giving a more 'wholesome' spin to the underground revenge fantasy.
Dr. Joseph Suglia, The Greatest Author in the World
Score: 5
- Posted on 2008-06-11
It's sooooooooooo 70's
I brought this for a girls night in.
We sat around with our wine and watched and giggled.
The Narrator in the trailer was our favorite part very melodramatic.
Score: 5