When I watch a movie, regardless of the genre, my expectations run off the same baseline. Tell me a story that is interesting where the character(s) go on a journey, learn, and change; hopefully for the better. Failing that my expectations lower to the genre the film purports to be. If it is an action movie; give me action. A comedy; make me laugh. A horror movie; scare me.
Of all the genre films horror movies have the toughest job. Especially if you are a horror film fan. With each horror film you watch, a resistance is built up to what will shock. Plus life shows real horror on a 24/7 nonstop basis on the now, pervasive All News TV station or live casting on the internet. Real horror lies in discovering a lump in your armpit that was never there before. Finding out your company is laying everyone, including you, off. Taking long term care of a loved one who is terminally ill and not being able to help them; be it a parent, spouse, sibling, or your son/daughter. That is real horror.
A great horror film will tell a good story, scare you, and make you ask tough questions about yourself. I Spit On Your Grave (ISPOYG) tells a story well that will unnerve you. It will also make you ask some tough questions about yourself.
Watching a horror movie is like ‘safe’ fear. It is too removed from real life to compete. Vampires. Werewolves. Vengeful spirits. Whatever it is, we know that real horror lies not with these fantastical creations but resides within us. The news shows it to us all the time. The terrible things we do to one another and to ourselves. So when a remake of a controversial movie, one that Roger Ebert remarked, ‘Attending it was one of the most depressing experiences of my life.’ it comes with built in hype. The remake is coming out with barely any controversy and Ebert’s condemnation of the original acts like marketing strategist’s dream promotional strategy. It makes you question the changes in the world between the original film and this remake.
ISPOYG is more than a competently crafted movie. The actors do convincing work, though I did find the sheriff a bit over the top, and are deftly directed. The story provides a neat twist or two in what is a rather straight forward crime and revenge story. None of the characters are presented as totally good or bad. The film’s protagonist Jennifer played capably by Sarah Butler has a taste for some vices in form of liquor and drugs. The guys on their own, albeit that they are rude and crude which is no crime, are essentially harmless. Put them together and their individual fears and insecurities lead them to actions as a group none of them could do of their own volition.
This remake is touched by ever increasing invasiveness of media. One of the thugs carries a video recorder. Somewhat quaintly though he still uses tape as opposed to flash media. It is somewhat comforting to see that even though technology’s tendrils may encroach everywhere it still takes time, especially in remoter rural areas. What is discomforting about it though is that the video footage brings that news highlight reel feeling to the proceedings. It has the unintended effect of numbing the impact of the violence; it feels like something you could change the channel on whenever you wanted to.
The premise of the movie revolves around a group of young men, plus the local sheriff, descending upon a writer who is looking for solitude as she writes her next book. In doing so she effectively isolates herself becoming an easy target. A chance encounter with one of the men, that ends embarrassingly for him, provides the sparking catalyst to set off the horrid chain of events that follow.
There are no winners in this type of movie. Only losers. The men commit heinous acts against the woman. All the more so because they goad a handicapped man into raping the woman first with the sheriff acting as the leader of the attack. These moments are uncomfortable to watch. As they should be. Some of the moments of group torture of the woman are more unsettling than the scenes of rape. The film treads the line in this area by showing enough to capture the violence of these moments without turning it into something pornographic or titillating. Never having seen the original it appears the remake has taken a much more restrained approach.
Though Jennifer avoids being killed, her escape is literally and figuratively the end of her life as she has known it. When she re-emerges she is no longer a person but an avenging avatar. The movie doubles back on itself replaying story beats from the first half as she enacts vengeance on each offending member by devising deaths that match and mock the actions they took with her. It is in these execution scenes where the movie goes for the obvious emphasis on the gore instead of the more subtle, and difficult to dramatize, mental and emotional destruction of Jennifer.
As Jennifer makes the final preparations to dispatch the last of the men, in this case the sheriff; he pleads with her not to harm his daughter as she is innocent. Jennifer responds dully that the sheriff had no problem stealing her innocence. It is here where the movie stumbled for me. That statement is hollow for we have seen Jennifer is no innocent. The movie missed its own point. What the men took from Jennifer was worse. They took her humanity and forsaken their own.
And in the process of watching this movie, it could rob us of some of our humanity too. Unless we remain very cognizant of what has transpired in this story.
And that is what scares me.