Delayed Reaction: I Spit on Your Grave

Premise: After a woman is brutally assaulted, she gets revenge on her assailants.

I don't know what I was expecting from this movie exactly. I knew there'd be an assault. Probably a rape scene. I knew there'd be revenge. Probably bloody and painful revenge. None of this suggests a movie I'd like. I prefer my horror more cerebral and slow burn. I don't care for seeing extended misery. I think I was intrigued by the idea of this as a franchise. I wasn't sure if it was the same woman getting revenge or a different woman every time. Was it something where she was the victim in the first then a proactive avenger in the rest? So, I decided to give this a try and see.

Here's what I really didn't expect: nearly half the movie is the woman's assault and those scenes go from bad to worse. That is just brutal to watch. I even turned down my TV a couple times because my windows were down and I didn't want my neighbors judging me. That was a thoroughly unpleasant experience. I figured the movie would be a quick 10-15 minutes of this toward the beginning. Maybe they'd even cut to black early enough that it could mostly be implied. Then, the rest of the movie would be following her around as she plotted and executed her revenge. I didn't even get that in the last half though. The men who assaulted her become the POV characters. She just turns into a bogeyman arranging creative deaths. I like aspects of that. It's a fun idea to make the protagonist the outside, mysterious force. It doesn't ask us to pity these men at all. It's tough though when the only character I actually like only shows up for scenes of unspeakable violence.

I Spit on Your Grave is very effective at what it's trying to be. It's true to its exploitation film roots. It's uncompromising and commits to making the audience feel uncomfortable. Not that I really needed one, but it's a reminder of what it really means when we throw rape around in entertainment. The revenge kills are creative and brutal. This is just fully not my kind of movie. (Which is going to make one of my next Reactions a little odd)

Verdict: Weakly Don't Recommend