Review of I Spit on Your Grave (2010) by Drew S — 16 Apr 2011

I Spit On Your Grave's abjectly uninteresting female lead ultimately undoes any positive feminist statement the filmmakers might have been trying to essay; their interests were clearly, first and foremost, in depicting her rape and subsequent torture-porn revenge on said rapists.

Past the first fifteen minutes of the film, Steven Monroe makes absolutely no effort toward developing Jennifer Hills. She's a writer; she is nice; she has friends; she smokes pot; she gets raped; she is sad; she gets even.

With about twenty words, I've hit the exact same character bases as the film does with the exact same proficiency. This isn't necessarily the fault of Sarah Butler's decent performance, but Jennifer feels far less like an actual person and more of a ravaged blow-up doll come to life to spit edgy one-liners at its attackers.

I will not deny the film its considerable strengths, as Monroe has a definite knack for dramatic rhythm and pacing. Unfortunately, they're in service of a hollow, cynical, pointless product, bizarrely devoid of fear or shocks; the only time the film is truly unsettling is during the rape itself, but only because the intention of the content is so blurry and dubious that you can't help but feel a little dirty.

The kills substitute gore for meaning, as we're not really sure what it was inside this unassuming woman that drives her to commit such brutality in the first place, and the shallow ironies ("so you like to watch?") just make I Spit On Your Grave seem like it's trying too hard to be clever.

Exploitation is at its worst when the human element is lost, but I Spit On Your Grave never really found it in the first place...