Ahoy, squirts! Quint here with my thoughts on the I Spit On Your Grave remake, which premiered at the Fantasia Film Festival.
Before I start the review for this one let me begin with some news. The filmmakers and the producers announced that I Spit On Your Grave will be released to theaters without a rating.
The MPAA came back with something like 110 cuts that had to be made to the film in order to get an R-rating and Anchor Bay ended up listening to the filmmakers and are meeting directly with theater owners now to try to get around the ratings system and release their film whole and complete.
Much like the original, if this film was to be released cut to shit then it really will just feel like a hollow exercise in shock. The whole point is to be disturbed by what you see, turned off by the violence and then put in the young lead’s shoes when she enacts her revenge. If that’s all implied, then there really was no point to telling this story.
So, good on them for having the nuts to flip the MPAA the bird and try to find their own way. I don’t envy the fight ahead of them, but I like that indie distributors are siding with filmmakers and not political pressure.
And that’s kind of a necessity if you are going to remake I SPIT ON YOUR GRAVE (aka Day of the Woman). You can’t make a slick, ball-less (hyuk) version of this movie without being a hollow money grab.
I have some issues with this film, but I can say without any doubt that director Steven R. Monroe’s intentions were pure. You can tell he approached this film seriously and with reverence to Meir Zarchi’s original.
From frame one I was impressed with the production value of the film. It looked sharp and I couldn’t tell if it was scope 16mm or 35mm… turned out to be digital (Red), which blew my mind a little bit. Monroe said later that night that he used only 35mm lenses and mimicked Kubrick’s lens selections to give it the most filmick feel he could. I know that seems hoity-toity for a remake of a sleaze classic, but I like it when a filmmaker takes a genre movie seriously.
It worked. The movie looks sharp and he found a great lead in Sarah Butler. Not only is she gorgeous, but she’s subtle, which isn’t exactly common in horror films. Especially for roles that require as much brutality and nudity as this one does for her.
Butler shares a lot of similarities to the original’s Camille Keaton… brunette, long hair, petite, vulnerable and convincingly homey looking. I know it’s hard to believe with the pics I’m including from the Q&A, but Butler’s all dolled up for this, the premiere. She doesn’t look much like that in the film.
If you’re not familiar with the original, the film is basically about a woman visiting a small town who is brutally raped and left for dead. She survives and returns the brutality visited upon her tenfold to her attackers.
My problem with the remake is that when it gets to the revenge portion of the movie they make Butler a little too kick-ass. She’s always in charge… a female Jigsaw in a way. She’s turned her pain into rage. That shows through fine and her revenge is very graphic and interesting set pieces, but it takes the movie from a gritty realism to a more typical movie world.
I would have loved seeing her plans not exactly working or her having to struggle to make some of these elaborate deaths pay off. I’m glad she’s not the victim anymore and that’s the whole point of the revenge movie, but by so radically separating it from the first half I feel they do the overall story a disservice.
But the filmmakers do successfully put you on her side, turning the audience into her cheer squad as she turns the tables, making the victimizers the victims which keeps the finale from feeling too much like torture porn.
So, solid filmmaking, good acting from Butler and her assailants (Chad Lindberg, Jeff Branson, Daniel Franzese and Andrew Howard) and… well, they put Tracey Walter in the movie, and that counts for a lot. “Find one in every car. You’ll see.”
The big rape scene isn’t quite as graphic as the original, but let’s just say you still don’t want to watch this with your mom. It’s still mega-uncomfortable.
Overall, I was surprised by how well this movie came together. This isn’t LAST HOUSE ON THE LEFT remake good, but that film had probably 20 times the budget. This flick is a little dirtier, but I’m happy to see them fighting to put it up on screens. This is absolutely a solid limited release film and a far above average DTV entry.
The Q&A turned out to be pretty nuts. The panel was interrupted by a young guy obviously under some kind of influence before they even opened up to questions from the audience. The guy was a passionate fan of the original, hated the remake and spent 10 minutes fighting boos and hisses from the audiences so he can ramble his incoherent thoughts.
I felt really bad for Monroe, who must have been on a high after listening to the 800 or so people vocally react and squirm in their seats.
Meir ended up settling the guy down a little, saying it’s okay… that just like his movie this new one will drive strong reactions and that it’s fine to have your own opinion. They ended with a hug, but the guy was still hissed out of the theater and the Q&A never really recovered.
The drama was quite interesting watching safely from my seat, but it was awkward as all hell. I’m actually very supportive of speaking one’s mind and feel that if you make a film you have to be able to hear all kinds of opinions, but this guy was obviously either out of his mind or determined to be the center of attention.
Still chipping away at these reviews. Keep them eyeballs peeled for more weirdness out of Fantasia!
-Quint
quint@aintitcool.com
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