Vengeance Is Mine...a Review of I Spit On Your Grave
I hate rape scenes. Really. They are violent, horrific and downright diabolical. I’ve seen enough of these kinds of scenes in my lifetime to understand why I try to stay away from movies like that. Unlike other types of horror films this one is a representation of something that is real. It’s real. It happens to people. This is why I hate it. Watching horror films to me is akin to watching science fiction. It’s out there. It’s unreal. It’s crazy, and it’s fun. There is nothing crazy and fun about rape. The reason why films like that fall under horror is because it is indeed a horror. A moral trigger is pulled inside a person that makes them squirm in their seats at the sight of someone sexually violating someone else. There’s a reason for that….our sexuality is a huge part of who we are as human beings. Rape is a human rights violation of sorts. We hear stories in the news about such atrocities in certain countries in Africa, the Middle East, and in India. Each time there is news about such things happening we all scream inside for justice…we want the people who do these things punished to the extreme.
That is what we get here in Steven R Monroe’s remake of the 1970’s cult film I Spit On Your Grave. The original title from the 1970’s was Day of The Woman, and for good reason. It’s a story of a girl who goes out in the middle of nowhere to work on a book and she encounters the local low lives of the town. Eventually they track her down and want to have some fun with her. They threaten her, beat her, and rape her repeatedly until there is basically nothing left of her that resembles anything akin to a content and happy person. In this remake the local sheriff himself is one of the perps. He anally rapes her and ends everything with getting ready to shoot her dead, but she escapes by throwing herself into the nearby river. They try to find her and they couldn’t.
A month goes by and things seem initially normal again for these creeps. Yet they did not know how smart this girl was. Systematically, one by one, she hunts them down like a killer maniac and proceeds to do things to them you wouldn’t do to a farm animal. The sheriff gets it really bad in the end…..so to speak….
What this movie did to me was make me very aware of something I’ve always had inside but pretty much ignored until I saw this film….I have a strong sense of wanting to punish the evil of the world. I hate the idea of people getting away with hurting others. This is something that clashes with my “forgive your enemies” way of living, because forgiveness absolves the evildoer of his actions. What goes through my mind is even though that is all good and virtuous, how does the idea of evil people being forgiven for terrible acts still make what they did not alright? If it’s evil to murder and rape and do other terrible things, how does stuff like that go unpunished? This is the root of vengeance in a soul that wants vindication for the foul act. I Spit On Your Grave addresses this paradox in the most rawest and most extreme vision you can ever encounter. A vision of atrocity. A vision of vindication for the victim. The victim becomes the evil the evildoers must face. One by one they are tortured and killed for their crimes. I found myself actually starting to love the film because I wanted to see them suffer and die for what they did to that girl. It invoked a twisted sense of pleasure and satisfaction to see what she does to them. Because they deserve it. They did not deserve to live. As a father of two little girls I had no remorse for their fates.
I actually like this film because of the vindication it incites in me. It’s unrated so it was shown in select movie theaters late at night as a result. I have my copy at home. I don’t watch it regularly at all but in my opinion it’s a keeper.
Yet the conflict is still there. I’m better than that. One of the things that make us human is our sense of compassion, forgiveness and mercy. However another thing that makes us human is our sense of justice. Just as our sense of forgiveness can be twisted and limited, so can our sense of justice. The virtuous side of me says “who am I to judge? Who am I to execute justice upon another?” The virtuous side of me also says…”This evil must be stopped. This evil must be punished.” There is the paradox. I get both emotionally and mentally confused when I watch I Spit On Your Grave. It invokes the reality of evil and the reality of retribution in my minds and heart. If you can stomach yourself to watch this film ask yourself what it invokes in you. You may be surprised by the answer.
That is what we get here in Steven R Monroe’s remake of the 1970’s cult film I Spit On Your Grave. The original title from the 1970’s was Day of The Woman, and for good reason. It’s a story of a girl who goes out in the middle of nowhere to work on a book and she encounters the local low lives of the town. Eventually they track her down and want to have some fun with her. They threaten her, beat her, and rape her repeatedly until there is basically nothing left of her that resembles anything akin to a content and happy person. In this remake the local sheriff himself is one of the perps. He anally rapes her and ends everything with getting ready to shoot her dead, but she escapes by throwing herself into the nearby river. They try to find her and they couldn’t.
A month goes by and things seem initially normal again for these creeps. Yet they did not know how smart this girl was. Systematically, one by one, she hunts them down like a killer maniac and proceeds to do things to them you wouldn’t do to a farm animal. The sheriff gets it really bad in the end…..so to speak….
What this movie did to me was make me very aware of something I’ve always had inside but pretty much ignored until I saw this film….I have a strong sense of wanting to punish the evil of the world. I hate the idea of people getting away with hurting others. This is something that clashes with my “forgive your enemies” way of living, because forgiveness absolves the evildoer of his actions. What goes through my mind is even though that is all good and virtuous, how does the idea of evil people being forgiven for terrible acts still make what they did not alright? If it’s evil to murder and rape and do other terrible things, how does stuff like that go unpunished? This is the root of vengeance in a soul that wants vindication for the foul act. I Spit On Your Grave addresses this paradox in the most rawest and most extreme vision you can ever encounter. A vision of atrocity. A vision of vindication for the victim. The victim becomes the evil the evildoers must face. One by one they are tortured and killed for their crimes. I found myself actually starting to love the film because I wanted to see them suffer and die for what they did to that girl. It invoked a twisted sense of pleasure and satisfaction to see what she does to them. Because they deserve it. They did not deserve to live. As a father of two little girls I had no remorse for their fates.
I actually like this film because of the vindication it incites in me. It’s unrated so it was shown in select movie theaters late at night as a result. I have my copy at home. I don’t watch it regularly at all but in my opinion it’s a keeper.
Yet the conflict is still there. I’m better than that. One of the things that make us human is our sense of compassion, forgiveness and mercy. However another thing that makes us human is our sense of justice. Just as our sense of forgiveness can be twisted and limited, so can our sense of justice. The virtuous side of me says “who am I to judge? Who am I to execute justice upon another?” The virtuous side of me also says…”This evil must be stopped. This evil must be punished.” There is the paradox. I get both emotionally and mentally confused when I watch I Spit On Your Grave. It invokes the reality of evil and the reality of retribution in my minds and heart. If you can stomach yourself to watch this film ask yourself what it invokes in you. You may be surprised by the answer.
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