Movie Review: "I Spit on Your Grave" (2010)

I have never seen the original version of the movie "I Spit On Your Grave," though I am quite familiar with some of the haunting, iconic imagery from it. It's reputation is also well known for having been at one time considered "banned" from viewing. When I rented the 2010 remake of the movie, I was not expecting much. I was expecting a boring, slicked over redo where the gritty grind house vibe is replaced with plastic sexy people performing torture porn. Torture porn is a derogatory label in my opinion and not befitting of many movies that involve torture and surpass the punishment of being labeled such. "I Spit On Your Grave," the remake, spits at the notion that it is torture porn, while embracing it.

"I Spit On You Grave" was directed by Stephen R. Monroe a name some might have caught sneaking around in the credits of movies such as: "Orge," "Sasquatch Mountain," and "Ice Twisters." The acting, for what now sounds like it could be a Syfy Channel poopfest, was provided by names such as: Sarah Butler, Jeff Branson, Andrew Howard, Daniel Franzese, Rodney Eastman, and Chad Lindberg.

The story for "I Spit On Your Grave," is a basic revenge tale. A woman goes to a secluded cabin to write her novel and instead gets a brutal dose of terror and gang rape at the hands of local yokels. They think her dead and gone, but she returns to give them their come-uppins.

This movie was more or less a direct to Dvd and Blu-ray affair, branded with the UNRATED label to entice perverts and gorehounds that what they were getting into would be nasty stuff. Indeed, this movie is probably too much violent rape and mutilation for your average movie viewer. It is the brutality that transcends it from a revenge drama into the horror genre, as well as the elaborate kills. The revenge murder sequences are a mixture of pure awesome, I mean terrible in a good way, eye candy, and silly. Ultimately they stand as a strong point for the production value. Fish hooks through the eyelids anyone?

The acting is another strong point. Any actress who puts herself into the skin of a woman who is going to be tortured and raped gets automatic kudos. Sarah Butler had some moments early on where I did not think she was ideally cast, but as the movie progressed she amped things up a degree. The problem though, is that when she is in revenge mode her dialog pretty much consist of her repeating lines already used in the movie by the bad guys, just saying what they said to her when they were hurting here. Andrew Howard is the real evil shine in the movie. His character is not developed very well in terms of believability, but he sells you on his intensity. The rest of the supporting cast were okay enough, you may recognize one guy as Jessie from "The Fast and the Furious," and another as the gay buddy from "Mean Girls." I actually had a hard time believing the gay guy from "Mean Girls" as a murderous, voyeur hillbilly. In the end: the acting is good, but the characters are not developed into real people at all.

The biggest problem with "I Spit On Your Grave" ends up being the believability factor. It cannot reach the level of intensity and dramatic horror that it should and it almost feels like laziness. Every single bad guy is hit over the head in some fashion before she exacts her revenge and they all black out for the exact amount of time she needs to drag them away, and tie them up in some elaborate torture fashion. Really? They just magically stay unconscious while she does all of this to them? Really? She drags and lifts grown men around, sometimes for what could have been miles? Really? They nap right through her sticking certain things into certain orifices. Not to mention the fact that a month goes by between her being left for dead and her deciding to get revenge, a month in which she chose to live in the woods eating rats instead of trying to go get help or go home. What? Why would she do that? Did she really get all the strength and energy for all of this elaborate man lifting from eating rats in the woods? Logic destroys this movie to such a degree that the more you think about it, the more you dislike the movie as a whole.

"I Spit On Your Grave" comes through with production value that actually makes it watch-able. I think horror fans looking for some interesting kills should check it out, worth a rent for that aspect. Other than that, those who normally would stay away from such a thing, you're doing the right thing.