I’m a huge horror movie fan. What can I say, it’s a bit of an addiction. The thing I like about horror movies is that I like finding a gem within the wash of repetitive and predictable garbage that’s out there. And there’s a shit load of awful horror movies that are doing the same things over and over again. But then I come across something like Martyrs or In My Skin and I get this rush of creative energy because I just watched someone come up with something new within the confines of a genre that’s become so formulaic.
Every genre of movie has its sub-genre. Just like Metal music has the sub-genres of Death Metal, Progressive Metal, Djent, etc. Horror movies have their own sub-genres as well. You’ve got Slasher films, Splatter, Torture Porn, New Wave of French Extreme, Monster, Supernatural, Haunted House, Body Horror, Survival Horror, Sci-Fi Horror, and so on and so on.
Well, the I Spit On Your Grave movies fall into a genre that I consider to be Revenge Horror. This is stuff like Nail Gun Massacre, Hard Candy, and I Saw The Devil. It’s basically a film where you’ve got this one central character that has had something horrible happen to them, they survive that ordeal, and seek out revenge on the people that screwed them up. Of course, this can spill over into action films like Death Wish but the horror genre revenge film is more horrific in how the character is abused and how the revenge is exacted.
Well, I Spit On Your Grave 2 (and it’s 2010 predecessor) takes the revenge genre and then combines it with torture porn. And I think the torture porn element was brought pretty far in this film. If you don’t know what torture porn is it’s basically films like Hostel and Saw. The whole point of a torture porn movie is to have the characters trapped in a situation where they’re tortured to death. That’s basically it. It pretty much has the same relevant plot line to a slasher film. Low on plot; high on gore.
So without giving any spoilers away, here’s the skinny on I Spit On Your Grave 2.
The original I Spit On Your Grave came out in 1978 and was very controversial for the time. It contained a rape scene that was around 25 minutes and was even banned in some countries. Roger Ebert called it one of the worst films of all time and was one of the main films he and Gene Siskel used as part of their campaign to change how certain movies portrayed women in danger on screen.
The I Spit On Your Grave movies aren’t a franchise, however. The original was a stand-alone film, then in 2010 they did a remake of it, and in 2013 the director of the remake put out a sort-of sequel. But the sequel has a different girl, a different group of assholes, and a different scenario all together.
But that leads me to what I Spit On Your Grave is all about. Even though it’s not a franchise there certainly is a formula to it: You take a pretty girl, brutalize her, leave her alive for some reason, and then watch her off the criminals in violent and creative ways.
That’s pretty much it.
The film opens up with a pretty fashion model who gets a call to do a photo shoot with a photographer that she’s never worked with or heard of before. The guy calls her on the phone and, look out, he’s got a heavy accent. For an American movie that only means one thing: the guy with the accent is the bad guy. This little technique has been used a bit in films and it’s meant to play up on the American fear of foreigners. Hostel, Turistas, and even The Human Centipede use this tactic.
So she shows up to the photo shoot by herself. Because that’s what models do when they go to a skeevy part of town – show up alone. No boyfriends needed. Nope. Just show up with a couple of pretty dresses and hope for the best. I’m sure photographers got into the business of taking pictures of pretty girls for the art of it. Why not trust them? What could go wrong?
Well, things go wrong and our pretty girl ends up in Bulgaria, drugged, raped, and a little confused. How did she get from New York City to Bulgaria you ask? Well, we don’t go over that little detail. It’s something we’ve learned from Japanese Horror films: present the plot line and don’t ask questions.
It’s just one inane thing after the other. Why would she go to a photo shoot by herself? How did she get from America to Bulgaria? Didn’t the plane stewardess have questions about this drugged up girl being carted around by three dirty looking Bulgarians? When you need help and you have the choice between a police officer and some random guy that pulls up in a car why would you pick to go with the random guy that pulls up in a car?
Look, I’m not going to give away any spoilers here. I’ll just say that things get a bit stupider and stupiderer as it goes on. But I guess that doesn’t all matter. What people want to see is a pretty girl getting smacked around so that when she hands out her revenge it’ll be that much more sweet.
And boy oh boy does she get her revenge.
The scenarios she comes up with to bring these people to justice are very cringe worthy. There are some scenes that no previous torture porn movie has dared to go. So, for that, I applaud the movie for not pulling any punches. However, some of the acting was pretty bad.
I know that it’s tough to gauge an actor’s performance based on a scenario they’re portraying that most audience members will have a hard time relating to. I mean, I have no idea how someone will react when they’re being buried alive. But, for some reason, the lead actress just kind of took me out of the movie. The way she screamed, the faces she made, the tone of voice and how she phrased certain lines. It was just odd and unreal to me. Hey, maybe that’s how it supposed to be. I haven’t actually seen real life scenarios like what’s depicted in the film. All I can say is that I was taken out of the movie and, for me, that’s a cardinal sin in any movie no matter what the genre.
