Movie Review: I Spit on Your Grave 2 (2013)

 

I'm a fan of the original I Spit on Your Grave in the sense that I respect it and the filmmaker for what he was trying to do. I respected it enough to be more than a tad disappointed at the 2010 remake, which was fantastically brutal, but I felt it focused too much on inventive revenge rather than the victim's feelings. Though I didn't really have much interest in I Spit on Your Grave 2, I knew I would eventually watch it because my sick mind loves movies like this. And what did this little sequel hold for me but a big surprise.

Katie is an aspiring model who visits a photography studio one day to have some pictures taken. She immediately leaves after refusing to pose nude, but when one of the men follows her home, things only turn more and more horrific as Katie is kidnapped, and brutally raped and tortured by several men. They bury her alive but Katie miraculously survives, and hashes out a plan to get her bloody vengeance on all those responsible for hurting her.

Again, I'm really surprised at how much I liked this. I thought I knew exactly what I would get with a straight-to-DVD sequel to a remake of a controversial 70s exploitation flick - but I ended up being wrong in some aspects. The sequel definitely cashes in on the gritty reputation of the series, as the rape and revenge scenes are very graphic and disturbing, but somehow the feel of the story is different. I think it was the side story with the priest and the police officer that made everything a bit easier to deal with for me. It was actually wonderful to see, for once, in a rape-revenge movie that not all males are evil - that most of them would be appalled to know of the things that happened to this girl.

Jemma Dallender is absolutely wonderful in the lead role of Katie, a role that is incredibly difficult on several levels. She had to go from being a happy, normal woman, to one going through unthinkable pain and suffering, to one made almost crazy and violent by what she has been through. Her voice, especially when she is screaming, is almost child-like but at the same time so raw with emotion that it hurts to listen to her cry and scream. When she has to go into hardcore killing mode for the revenge, she excels. They also gave Dallender the same basic look that Camille Keaton made famous in the original ISPOYG - with the long, long hair parted down the middle - and I really like that as a nice homage or common thread between all the movies. The title also appears on the screen in way similar to the previous entries and that was nice to see as well.

I do question the character of the police officer in Bulgaria a little bit. He really does fuck-all to help Katie when she first escapes, or at least doesn't seem all that experienced in dealing with rape victims. He says her story is implausible and that she seems to be on drugs, which is why she doesn't want to go to the hospital. Okay, a couple things about that. Has he never heard of the international sex slave trade where women are drugged and taken to other countries? Does he not know that a lot of rape victims refuse medical attention because they don't want to be violated again? I'm not saying that he wasn't sympathetic toward what happened to Katie, it's just that his thoughts did not match his actions.

The violence is disturbing to say the least - at one point I even questioned if they had gone too far. The first rape is a long and graphic scene, and things only get worse from there. Katie is pissed on by one of her rapists after asking for water to drink, she is violently beaten about the face for no reason, and endures several shocks to the body and genitals by a cattle prod. Her kidnappers sell her to a disgusting, fat sadist to do whatever he wants to her for a while, and though you never see what he does to her beyond the cattle prod, it is probably most shocking to see her in the aftermath, lying on the dirty mattress in the fetal position with a huge amount of blood on the insides of her thighs.

This is all so messed up that I was somewhat pissed off that cattle prod asshole did not get the worst of Katie's revenge. Again, she does things to the perpetrators that are similar to what they did to her. The guy who pissed on her gets drowned in some more piss and shit, and that was probably my favorite one because for me, the pissing on her was almost worse than anything else that happened. As weird as that sounds, it just seems absolutely disgusting and the ultimate humiliation - a show of the character's complete lack of respect for others. Cattle prod asshole should have gotten what the leader of the rape pack got in the end - a brutal and uncut scene of his balls getting smashed in a vice. Now, how all this was accomplished by a girl living with nothing in the sewers of a foreign country is hard to believe at times, but if you're worried about that stuff by this point, you're watching the wrong movie.

I absolutely love revenge films and I have to say that I Spit on Your Grave 2 is surprisingly a nice entry into the genre. It is ultra-violent and difficult to watch, like these movies should be, but a wonderful lead actress carries the film well, and the shift in location and circumstances bring something new to the series. It is definitely not one for everyone, though, so watch at your own risk.

Movie Review: I Spit on Your Grave (2010)

I Spit on Your Grave was truly and honestly the only horror phenomenon that I thought was safe from the recent remake frenzy. And don't get me wrong, I've liked a good number of the remakes that have come out so far, it's just that I Spit seemed like the kind of movie that critics and censors wanted to forget about. But now it's back and I'm frankly a little conflicted about the outcome.

So the plot is mostly similar to the original - young, pretty writer Jennifer Hills (with almost the same hairdo, might I add) rents a cabin in the woods to write a new book. She meets up with the local hoods at the gas station, embarrasses one of the dudes and rejects his advances, so they get all testosterone rage-y and assault her in various ways one night. They think they killed her, but she survives and comes back to seek her vengeance against the attackers.

The first thing to piss me off was the country bumpkin rapists not liking Jennifer because she was a hoity toity "big city gal." Same as in the original, they say that she didn't come out to the woods to write her book, she went there to have sex. UGH. I am so sick of this plot point. The rednecks always hate the city people because they think they are all rich and snobby. So cliche. Think of something else, for the love of all that is gory.

I almost completely checked out of the movie when the sheriff becomes the main instigator of Jennifer's assault. Maybe I watch too many cop shows but I have far too much respect for police officers to accept all the sadistic, crooked, or incompetent cops that are portrayed in movies. It is 2011, people, and I don't care how backwoods someone is, it is still unbelievable to me that a sheriff would be the ringleader of a brutal gang rape and (supposed) murder.

All right, let's talk torture now, shall we? First of all, the scene at the beginning where Jennifer is running and comes across the abandoned cabin where she eventually carries out her revenge was so unnecessary. They have spooky shots of the bathtub and the hedge clippers, and I'm screaming at the TV, "STOP FORESHADOWING SO MUCH! WE GET IT!" Anyway. Overall, Jennifer's methods of torture and murder were too elaborate for me (although one could argue that she did have a whole month to plan it out), but it was a nice touch that each of the men's demises paralleled the kind of person they were or the way that they abused Jennifer.

Then again, Jennifer herself kept cheapening the moments by repeating back to the men the things they said during her assault. "I thought you were an ass man," "You said, 'Suck it bitch,'" and all that weird "show horse" crap. It became almost comical, and while you were still rooting for the assholes to die, the seriousness of the crime they committed was practically lost.

One thing that made me uncomfortable about the original was how Jennifer seduced her rapists into her revenge traps. It just never felt right and although you could say that she was being clever by catering to their misogynistic attitudes to trick them, it almost confirms their feelings that women are whores and use sex to get what they want. So I'm glad the remake had Jennifer showing up as a total badass and the men being immediately afraid of her and what she was going to do to them. I especially loved how she whacked both Andy and Stanley with a baseball bat and was able to control them both at the same time. She has the power now and that is the real message of the movie.

At times, her revenge seemed almost worse than their initial crime. Although the first rape by Matthew was incredibly brutal, I was squirming in my seat when Jennifer rammed the shotgun as hard as she could up the sheriff's ass. Speaking of this scene, just wanted to say that I know what you were doing here, filmmakers. You're trying to rival the ending to The Last House on the Left remake, aren'tcha?!

OH! Oh, oh, oh, you wanna talk about pissing me off? How about Andy's line about how after the rape, Matthew was acting all strange and as Andy says, "I think he even feels guilty." I about jumped in the TV and ripped the dude's face off. "I think he even feels guilty"??? As if there's nothing to feel guilty about. Angry Michele. Very, very angry Michele. BUT, it was the selling point in making me really enjoy the payoff of him getting his face melted off in a bathtub of lye. 

Final Thoughts:

Not gonna lie - I LOVE how they recreated the original poster art. Grey on white looks awesome for this kind of movie and is quite evocative looking.

The sheriff's daughter's name is Chastity? In a rape-revenge movie? Is that some kind of a joke?!

Meir Zarchi, the director of the original film, was executive producer on the remake. Hm.

Blogger is also pissing me off because the text is not wrapping around the pictures like I like it. Doesn't have anything to do with the movie but it does this every once in a while and it really annoys me.