Keep It in Your Pants

Rape is bad. But according to Law and Order rapists are still raping (they climbing in your window snatching your people up… ). Thusly, the horror genre takes it upon itself to reiterate the “don’t rape, it’s not cool” message in movies like I Spit on Your Grave




Critics panned this one, once again confirming my suspicion that critics should stick with high brow fare. This remake of the controversial original (which was also panned) is one of the best horror flicks I’ve seen in a long damn time. Jennifer, a writer, decides to take some time off in a secluded cabin in the woods. All horror fans know this will lead to certain misfortune. On her way to the cabin she meets some of the more colorful locals and catches their interest. Bad for her. Jennifer is gang raped and assumed to be dead. But you know what they say about assuming. In reality she’s alive and pissed. Pissed to the 1000 degree (and rightfully so!). Cue the revenge.

Pretty basic revenge plot right? Sure, but here’s what made it amazing: first you get to see exactly where things take a downhill turn. Often in horror flicks you don’t find out exactly why the rapist does what he does. This isn’t an episode of SVU. There’s rarely an interrogation in the revenge scenes. However; I Spit on Your Grave shows the exact moment when Jennifer’s fate is sealed. As the rest of the guys taunt Johnny you see the man’s shaky hold on morality slip away. You can almost hear his inner monologue, something along the lines of “Imma rape that bitch”.

Secondly, that’s some damn good revenge. When Jennifer slaps Stanley (Daniel Franzese. Or that guy from Bully as I identified him immediately. Or that guy from Mean Girls as I later realized.) with a face full of fish guts Shady and I both approved with shrugs. That’s pretty fucked up and rude we agreed. Being tied up with your eyes pinned open and covered in fish guts certainly isn’t a fun way to spend the afternoon. I admit, we didn’t get it. Unit the crow landed in his lap. Then the living room came alive with exclamations “oh shit!” and “that’s fucking awesome!”.

The only thing I really didn’t like about this movie was how Jennifer handled the sheriff. Not that I objected to the anal violation. Nope, the moment he uttered the words “I’m an ass man” I knew that was going to come back to haunt him and I glad. I wanted the emotional side of his torture, the way Jennifer taunted him by bringing his family into the whole mess, to be worse. I wanted his sweet pregnant wife to know what a sick fuck her husband was (particularly since it was hinted at that this wasn’t the first time this rowdy bunch had did something like this). I wanted to see him mentally destroyed the same way our girl undoubtedly was.

If you don’t like graphic (seriously graphic) and realistic (seriously realistic) rape scenes avoid this flick. If you can stomach then I highly recommend this one.