I SPIT ON YOUR GRAVE

I Spit On Your Grave is the late-seventies "cult" classic about a woman who gets brutally gang-raped--repeatedly--and then gets bloody retribution against her attackers. I'd heard about this movie for a long time and especially how "gory" it is and, when I finally got to watch it, I must say it was one of the few films that actually lived up to its, for lack of a better word, hype. But I feel it's only fair to warn potential viewers of this flick is that it's one of the MOST brutally effed-up flicks I've EVER seen. I mean, the brutal gang-rape scene alone takes up about 30 minutes of the film. (By comparison, the hillbilly "all-male" rape scene in the earlier-reviewed Deliverance is not even HALF that long!) And then there's, of course, the last half of the film where the woman gets said bloody retribution. And when I say bloody I mean, of course, BLOODY; like, for instance, she slices off one rapist's, shall we say, appendage while he's in the bathtub and locks him in the bathroom and lets him bleed out screaming while she's rocking back-and-forth in a rocking chair while listening to an opera record. Hell, even one of her attackers is--again, shall we say--mentally-challenged. As you can probably already tell, subtle is NOT in this flick's cinematic vocabulary! Anyway, parts of this film is rather slow-going and kind of boring but, when the violence and/or brutality starts, YIKES! But, I have to admit, two of the eeriest scenes for me--other than, of course, the obvious ones!--is when the woman spies on one of her attackers--the one she "attacks" in the bathtub--as he's with his wife and kids and also the scene where she goes inside a church and says "Forgive me!" before she goes on her killing spree. Even this blog's namesake the late Roger Ebert called the film, and I quote, "a vile bag of garbage" and stated how watching this film, and again I quote, "was one of the most depressing experiences of my life." This film has also been banned even to this day in a number of countries, including Germany (GERMANY!!!!). Now, the question remains, whether or not I personally "enjoyed" this movie. To be brutally (pardon the pun!) honest, this is one of those movies I could go either way on. Anyway, I wouldn't necessarily describe this film as an out-and-out horror flick, though at least some viewers would most certainly call it horrific. But, whatever one wants to call this film, I Spit On Your Grave is not--I repeat--NOT an easy film to watch. You've been warned! A sidenote: The film's director once told the story of how he once "rescued" a rape victim and how this "influenced" him to do this movie. I'm not sure if he "embellished" this particular story to make him look more "heroic" and/or to try to deflect all the criticism and/or condemnation this movie provoked. In any case, whatever this director's initial intentions were in wanting to do this movie, this flick is pure exploitation. Pure and simple. Not that I think there's anything wrong with that since I've, of course, reviewed "exploitation" flicks before on this blog (a perfect example of this would be the earlier-reviewed The Last House On The Left, which was the first rather brutal film directed by Wes "A Nightmare On Elm Street" Craven), although I would say this particular flick is more "exploitative" than most others I've seen, you know what I'm saying? Oh yeah, this film also spawned at least a couple of sequels and a remake released a couple of years ago. Just thought you'd like to know!

Here's a clip of the old movie review show Siskel & Ebert where they discussed I Spit On Your Grave along with other what they less-than-affectionately term "women-in-danger" films of which I thought was rather absurd since, along with ISOYG, in one of the other of these films they attacked, Friday the 13th, not only is the killer foiled by a young woman but THE KILLER IS A WOMAN!!!! (The killer being, of course Jason's mother who kills both women AND men not because she "hates" women as Siskel & Ebert suggest in their rather absurd condemnation of these type of flicks but rather she blamed camp counselors for the death of her son Jason, who, as horror aficionados all know, starts killing said campers/counselors in the sequels. I wonder, did Siskel & Ebert bother watching some of these flicks before they condemned them and/or the people who watched them?)