A Vingança de Jennifer

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")

I am honestly kind of surprised by the lack of reviews in the 4-6 out of 10 range. To me, that's exactly the range this movie belongs in.

First of all, I'd heard of how controversial this film was since I was in high school (around the year 2000) but never quite had the urge to seek it out considering it was commonly described as being mostly just rape, I suppose. Finally, in 2019, I felt it was the right time - and, it lived up to it's legend, in the sense that the majority of the movie really was just one long, extended rape scene. 2/3 of the film basically revolves around that, I'd say. I definitely haven't seen that in any other movie, ever, which does give this film it's own identity. But, as one would assume, it's not pleasant. It's also not impressive in the sense of realism, or in any sort of artful manner. So, instead, you're just choosing to watch an hour of gritty, artless, trash film rape. Since this is the majority of the film, this is what loses it the most points. I seriously doubt I will ever watch it again.

I think the movie is a bit long for what it is. If it were hyper-realistic, the grueling pace would make more sense, but since the acting is schlocky, it would have made more sense to move things along quickly. I really think this film would have served a lot better as a 80-85 minute feature rather than a 100+ minute one. Those 15 minutes of cuts could make a world of difference.

The complete lack of soundtrack also gives the film a lot of it's own unique character. While a haunting score is generally one of my favorite elements of vintage horror, I ended up admiring this movie's complete lack of one. The sound of the motorboat coming really does become I Spit On Your Grave's "theme song", and it's pretty effective in that regard.

On the plus side, Camille Keaton really does bring a lot to the role. This was a very brave performance on her part and the shift from battered victim to sly vengeance seeker is actually believable and satisfying. Though the final act wasn't enough to redeem the movie much as a whole, I did find the acts of vengeance to be quite satisfying and memorable in comparison to a lot of forgettable horror deaths throughout history. I also enjoyed the cinematography for the most part - as often stated, it has a very real element of amateurism and also voyeurism to it, which adds a lot to the gritty surrealism of it. All the distant, out-on-the-water shots really did create quite a bit of an out-in-the-middle-of-nowhere ambiance.

This is a controversial cult classic for a reason. If you're a fan of gore, exploitation, or movies that push things as far as they can go, then yes you should absolutely see this. If not, don't even think about it!

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.

I Spit on Your Grave is a film that will never be accepted as a serious piece of film-making. This is thanks in part to the gratuitous rape and murder scenes, which don't exactly hold back the shocks; and it's also due to the time in which it was made. These days, as proved by the likes of 'Irreversible', films tackling rape in a shocking and disgusting way are more readily accepted, and even gain a strong reaction from many critics. This film was unfortunately (albeit for good reason) caught up in the 'video nasty debate' in the early eighties, and as such it's reputation has been diminished to such an extent that the likes of Roger Ebert have labelled it 'the worst film ever made' (even though The Blair Witch Project is the worst film ever made) and it's reaction in general tends to be of the bad variety. For some reason, we have found ourselves in a world where it's more than acceptable to give praise to 'A class' rape themed dramas such as Irreversible, but woe betide thee who labels this as a good film. Well, woe betides me then.

For a 'video nasty', I Spit on Your Grave has surprisingly good production values. While the acting often lets it down, the cinematography and even the script are more than decent and this helps the film in it's bid to get the praise it deserves. The story, which follows a New York writer who moves to a backwater part of the USA to work on her new novel, shortly before being horribly raped and beaten, is just a plot device for the more important elements of the plot. The main theme on display seems to be a comment on the male sexual ego and the way that women can have power over them. The film plays out like a revenge thriller, with the protagonist getting her own back on the men who raped her. This disrupts the main argument against this film; namely, that it's misogynistic, as much of the violence in the movie is actually directed against men. Of course, the rape scenes are the main crux of the film; but most of the gore comes later. Don't get me wrong, this is hardly an uplifting feminist drama; but it's not the worst film ever made either. Content caution though; it gets a bit extreme. A certain scene in a bathroom takes the prize for being one of the sickest sequences ever to grace the silver screen.

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.