I Spit On Your Grave

(1978) **

I actually was expecting to be more disturbed/annoyed by this movie than turned out to be the case. After enjoying Severance so much, I thought it would be a good time to dip into some Catfreek level depravity. Don't get me wrong, it's definitely disturbing, especially in that grainy 1970s low budget grindhouse quality, but there's just enough skill on display that I kept mildly interested throughout.

This is one of the early cult "classics" in that lovely sub genre: rape-revenge fantasies. Yeah, that exists.

The plot is pretty simple. An attractive young aspiring author rents a country house for the summer to work on her first novel. She gets gang raped by 4 guys who can only be described as Deliverance meets Jersey Shore. Then she kills them all. I know, it's pretty complicated, so here's a visual aid.

I see on wiki that this was controversial when released in the 70s--duh. But it's interesting that some feminists got behind the film as some sort of women's empowerment theme masquerading as an exploitation flick. I can kinda see that, based on some choices the director makes in terms of perspective and pacing. But really, it's all about the exploitation, maybe an exercise in "how far can we go?"

A few other fun things I found out on wiki:

- In the UK, the film was branded a "video nasty" and stayed on the list of prosecutable films until 2001. Seriously, Euros have some f-ked notions of free speech. Prosecutable films? - The movie is still banned in Ireland. - The director was married to the female star. "Hey, I've got this role you'd be perfect for, honey!"