I Spit on Your Grave

You plan to spend the summer locked away, in a cabin in the woods is where you'll stay, start to write a piece of fiction, enjoy your time without restriction, what could possibly go wrong, get in the way? It's not too long before you're woken from your dream, as four assailants hunt you down and make you scream, raped and beaten left for dead, terror, fear, alarm and dread, but you will get recompense, and start to scheme.

A vicious and brutal piece of filmmaking that has the remarkable Camille Keaton excising a violent attack from her mind by replacing those memories with ones that are far more rewarding.

This is a hard flick to watch. When it was shown in theaters, people walked out after seeing certain scenes. Rape and castration are not everyone's cup of tea.

Revenge flicks are hot right now with The Brave One and Death Sentence. Of course, there is the Death Wish series that defined the genre. I originally saw this film after it came out on VHS. I've seen it many times, but that is a long story. I decided to revisit it after not seeing it for 17 years.

The rape scenes are brutal, especially the one on the rock. The revenge scenes are also harsh, but satisfying in a vengeance sort of way.

Arkansas native Camille Keaton, who is a grand-niece of Buster Keaton, gives a stirring performance as the victim. She even won a Best Actress award at the Catalonian International Film Festival. The rest of the cast only have this one film in their resume.

Of all the films that were implicated in the absurd and sickening tabloid-fueled "video nasties" witch-hunt in the UK, some were demonised more than others. I SPIT ON YOUR GRAVE joins a select few as being one of THE films cited for causing the most problems at the time. Certainly, the title and advertising campaign (in classic exploitation fashion) was garish and contentious, but unlike some other films that suffered the same fate (such as SS EXPERIMENT CAMP), Zarchi's film is extremely powerful and disturbing... not to mention widely misinterpreted.

I've read a large number of reviews of this film. A worryingly high percentage of them accuse this movie of somehow advocating rape, and being sexist and demeaning. That is the last thought that crosses my mind whilst watching this. The whole "rape/revenge" genre is one that is fraught with moral contradictions. In essence, films of this type ARE exploiting the subject of rape (and sadly, often presenting it in a sexually ambiguous way) but does this mean that they are not able to condemn the subject matter, or offer a powerful criticism of the behaviour of many men towards women? The same school of argument is used against critical film-making like CANNIBAL HOLOCAUST- can a film truly condemn what it exploits? I believe so, and I SPIT ON YOUR GRAVE is a triumphant example of this, putting forward more powerful a message about violence of rape and the attitudes of some men towards it than any other movie I care to mention. However, it goes even deeper than this in this particular case. Zarchi doesn't praise the rapists- nor does he condemn them. Similarly he offers no moral judgment on the revenge that is carried out by the female protagonist. I SPIT ON YOUR GRAVE offers a truly subjective message in that it presents gritty reality and leaves the viewer to make up their mind on the matter.

Much is made of the fact that the rape scenes last for around forty minutes. It seems that a lot of critics think that by proxy, long scenes of violence equal pure exploitation. In this case, this is far from the truth. The scenes are horrific, grueling and ugly. There is no kind of glorification of rape here. The scenes are shot practically real-time which brings home the gritty and sickening nature of what is being displayed. Furthermore, a lot of the scenes are shot from the victim's perspective. The revolting sight of sweating, grunting men is absolutely anti-sexual and anti-erotic, which is of course EXACTLY what it should be in this context! Rape has little to do with sex, and a great deal more to do with violence and power. This is expressed superbly in the sequences in this film. Sanitising the scenes that are supposedly "exploitative" would trivialise the very serious issues at hand.

The men presented in I SPIT ON YOUR GRAVE are nothing to emulate. Nothing is even said about the backgrounds of their characters- they are totally faceless within the context of the film (other than one long shot later on which shows one of the men with his family- merely proving him to be a liar and cheat as well as a rapist). The point here is that they don't even NEED character building- they represent the threat and actuality of sexual violence that women face every day. The final and most telling twist is that these men are then so gullible and arrogant that they could be seduced and murdered by the person they had attacked. If Ebert and all his sniveling comrades are really right about this film "promoting sexual violence", they must see something appealing in the behaviour of these men.

Despite what you might read elsewhere, I SPIT ON YOUR GRAVE is a tightly constructed and well crafted piece of film-making containing some powerfully symbolic imagery. Scenes such as Keaton sitting broken and alone in her house after her attacks or her swimming costume limply floating in the river are extremely effective. There is also practically no music in the entire film. The viewer can almost feel the sense of isolation at every stage of the story- initially it is liberating but it quickly becomes frightening as events unfold. The simple cinematography reflects the isolated feel of the locations that frame this film.

Many horror films can be fairly accused of being misogynistic. I SPIT ON YOUR GRAVE takes these concepts of misogyny and totally turns them around. This film is EMPOWERING, and whilst it does have the cynical production of an exploitation feature, Zarchi took this and created a powerful, bitter and dynamic story with many issues being explored therein. It's great. Check it out if you haven't already, and if you've watched it before with the wrong approach to it, I demand you have another look. This is one of the pinnacles of the genre but sadly it is (in)famous for all the wrong reasons.

Shocking and disturbing, if you are not repulsed by this movie then you may need to see a psychiatrist.

It's one of those films that was hyped up as a slasher movie when it was released in the US in 1978 (and subsequently banned in the UK until 2001) alongside the Halloween's and Friday the 13th's, but it is anything but.

A lone writer is mentally and physically raped and seeks revenge, there is no hero, there is only despair and pain, there is no happy ending, just hurt and repulsion.

The violence is never glorified it just shows the depths of human pain and despair.

In summertime, the aspirant New Yorker writer Jennifer Hills (Camille Keaton) rents a lakeside cottage in the woods of the peaceful Park Hell Lane, Connecticut, to write her first novel during the vacation. A couple of days later, she is successively and brutally gang raped by three local bigoted rednecks and one retarded delivery boy from the supermarket. The humiliated and abused Jennifer does not report the sexual assault to the police and a couple of weeks later, she is physically recovered and has just plotted revenge against the rapists.

"Day of the Woman" is extremely realistic and violent; therefore the simple and scary story is absolutely credible. The unknown Camille Keaton has an amazing performance, especially in the impressive long sequence when she is repeatedly beaten and raped. However, this gore movie is only recommended for very specific audiences and prohibited to sensitive persons due to the savagery of most of the scenes. My vote is seven.

Title (Brazil): "A Vingança de Jennifer" ("The Revenge of Jennifer")