Frightfest 2010: I Spit on Your Grave (2010)

This film confused me. I wanted it to say something, something about the battle of the sexes, something about the futility of revenge, something about the brutality of society where women are still seen as inferior. Sadly the film seems to have nothing to say, instead reveling in its brutality and inventive sadistic kills.

Now let me preface this by saying, I have never seen the original film on which this is based. Its a film I avoided but one that I understand is the very pinnacle of the grimy grindhouse films that used to be banned in this country. As such I had no pre conceived notions about what this film should or should not be. I should also probably let you know that I’m no longer somebody who seeks out violent films or ones that I hear are a mission to sit through. Something inside me changed recently, could have been the birth of my nephew or my stay in hospital but as a result I have no desire to see the likes of Martyrs, Anti-Christ or A Serbian Movie. I purchased the tickets for ISOYG on a whim to fill a hole in my schedule before Monsters, the film I really wanted to see. 2010 marks the first time since 2004 I have decided to see more than one film at Frightfest. I got a weekend pass back in 2004 but found it quite draining seeing all the films that weekend. Somewhere between Casshern and The Machinist I got kind of shell shocked with a thousand yard stare thing going on. I love the vibe of the thing though, I love the fact that the directors show up to promote their films and often spend time wandering around in the lobby afterwards where fans can approach them. Festival organizer Ian Rattray introduced ISOYG and said that the film had been trimmed by 40 seconds or so by the bbfc and that the first hour was grueling but once that's up we would be seeing some startling violence.

The film takes place in Virginia, somewhere in the wilderness where writer Jennifer Hills (Sarah Butler) rents a cabin for a couple of months to get some work done. On her way to the cabin she is harassed by some redneck gas station employees and embarrasses one of them. The next couple of nights she is startled by noises outside, dead birds and a shed whose doors just will not stay shut. Eventually the rednecks decide to break in to the cabin and scare her. What starts off as just intimidation quickly escalates and becomes very uncomfortable viewing. Sarah manages to escape and the audience breaths a sigh of relief when she runs into the local sheriff out on a hunting trip. The sheriff takes her back to the cabin and the rednecks turn up again. Our hopes are dashed however when the Sheriff turns out to be pals with the rednecks and they take it in turns to savagely rape Jennifer. This is where the film goes on a bit too long for my liking, its quite lurid, not titillating in any way but just uncomfortable. Instead of cutting away to the aftermath we get quite a lot of the incident. I suppose it was to make what comes afterwards more justified but I digress. Jennifer eventually manages to stumble away broken and violated and jump into the river. This freaks the rednecks out and the sheriff orders the boys to keep an eye out on the banks for the next few days. Then comes the most chilling part of the movie. The Sheriff goes home to his family and is shown to be a loving family man home from just another day at work. A few days go by and Jennifer’s body doesn’t show up. The boys start going about their lives again but something is stalking them, leaving video tapes lying around, leaving dead birds outside their homes and posing as a teacher. Its not giving anything away to reveal that this is Jennifer, and she is hell bent on revenge in increasingly violent ways.

So did I like it? Overall yes I did. Its very well made, it could have been super exploitative and horrid but its slick and well shot and acted. Director Steven R.Monroe does a good job and has a good eye for atmosphere. When the nasty is revisited on the rednecks tenfold, the audience were cheering and clapping and I was right there with them.Unlike the Saw films, the violence in this felt justified and dare I say necessary. I imagine this is what a roman coliseum felt like back in the day, instead of cheering when a slave was beheaded we were cheering as a man is castrated and having his penis fed to him. Ah civilization, how far we have come….

Sarah Butler is good in the main role, looking like a cross between Lindsay Loan and Kristen Stewart, she gets our sympathies but the script doesn't allow us any indication that the characters life has been shattered forever once she gets her revenge.Still she is a brave actress to take on this role, she is brutalized and naked for much of the running time and kudos to her for letting it all hang out so to speak. The young actors who play the rednecks are all pretty good and unlikeable, all played by people you have seen in other stuff but cant quite place it. Chad Lindberg in particular is really good, he played Jesse in the original Fast and The Furious movie and has a similar role here but a bit more mentally challenged. He probably had the meatiest part actually, he plays an innocent who is cajoled into the crime by bullying tactics. His fate is one of the things that made me genuinely conflicted about what the movie was trying to say. Or if it had anything to say at all.

I feel wrong for having liked this movie but I did, so sue me. All through it I was expecting to have it conclude with some kind of profound meditation on the plight of women or the poor and uneducated. It didn’t happen though but I had fun, lurid guilty fun and sometimes that’s enough.

I Spit on Your Grave should come out some time later in the year in a heavily cut or unrated version depending on where you live. Seek it out if you can handle it but don’t say I didn’t warn you!

by Chris Holt