Love it or loathe it with every fiber of your being, you must admit that Meir Zarchi's I SPIT ON YOUR GRAVE occupies an important (if remarkably dingy) place in film history. Though it did not invent the "Rape Revenge" subgenre (Ingmar Bergman's THE VIRGIN SPRING begat Wes Craven's LAST HOUSE ON THE LEFT, which seemingly begat everything else), it's easily the most notorious - that brilliantly sensational title and one seriously pissed-off Roger Ebert made sure of that. And while Joe Bob Briggs and Carol Clover have written compelling defenses of the film, most people still view it as one of the most repellent motion pictures ever made. Of course, most of these people have never seen I SPIT ON YOUR GRAVE. I expect they'll also keep their distance from Steven R. Monroe's remake, which opens in limited release this weekend sans an MPAA rating. This is probably for the best: Monroe's film is a scarring experience that pushes further with the violence, while staging the protracted rape of its protagonist in a way that's plenty disturbing in its own right. The premise is the same (young, attractive female writer retreats to a rural cabin to tap out her next book, and runs afoul of sexually threatened locals), but it's much more polished; whereas Zarchi's film damages with its roughshod aesthetic, Monroe's movie is disconcertingly clean. The performers are also far more accomplished - particularly Andrew Howard as the seemingly decent Sheriff Storch. And Sarah Butler is so painfully sweet and trusting (and, it must be noted, sexy) that the looming assault - which hangs oppressively over the first act - seems almost unlikely. When it happens, you'll want to leave; whether it's worth it to hang around for the evening of the score is up to you. The highest compliment I can pay Monroe's I SPIT ON YOUR GRAVE is that it left me feeling every bit as gutted as the original did. This film goes all the way. Monroe, as expected, was every bit as pleasant in person as his film is punishing. In the below interview, we talk about horror geeks' fascination with Zarchi's original, the difficulty in maintaining a friendly yet focused set, and THE PURPLE ROSE OF CAIRO. We also discuss the last shot of the film at length, so tread carefully if you're spoiler-sensitive.

Mr. Beaks: What was your first experience with Meir's film? As a kid, I remember it being one of those films on the horror shelf that I knew I had to rent at some point. But I had to build up to it.

Steven R. Monroe: I saw it in 1980 on VHS. I grew up in the film industry, so I'd already seen quite a few dark, disturbing films before that. I already had an appreciation for movies that pushed the envelope. It wasn't anything that freaked me out at all, but it was definitely one of those films that, when it ended, you had a certain uneasiness hanging on you. It was one of those things where, a couple of times for the next few days, I would think about the movie and get this discomfort. (Laughs) And I realize it was because the film was impactful; it took a lot of guts to make that movie. I had a lot of respect for it. I grew up watching Kubrick movies, and that's the kind of filmmaking that I respond to: things that push the envelope. It's easy to just go and make a film about being happy. (Laughs)

Beaks: Your film makes me feel the same way the original did - although it's different in that it's much more polished. But, as with Meir's film, once you get into the awful business of the rape and the revenge, it makes me wonder how you made it through the shoot with your sanity intact.

Monroe: The actors?

Beaks: The actors. You. The crew. Everyone.

Monroe: We all knew what we were in for. We knew it wasn't going to be easy. Being in the film business, it's kind of like a traveling circus or a bunch of gypsies. When you get to location... I always say this jokingly, but this is why a lot of marriages and families fail in the film industry. You go into this situation, and for months on end you're spending twelve to fifteen hours a day in very intimate and intense situations with people. A lot of us knew what we were going in for - fortunately, and unfortunately, it's my job to set a tone and an atmosphere on set so that carries over and people don't fall off the wagon so to speak. It was very physically and mentally exhausting, but I think everybody stepped up to the challenge beyond my expectations.

Beaks: How did you deal with the off-camera relationship between Sarah and her attackers? Did you keep them separate?

Monroe: I've told this story a couple of times, and the actors tell it a little differently. We were somewhat shooting in chronological order. I insisted on that - as much as we could on a low-budget film on an eighteen-day schedule. I said, "Look, at least until we get to a certain point, let's not all become buddies like we always do on movies." Of course, actors rarely listen to their directors. I think it was the third or fourth day of shooting... I'm in my hotel room watching dailies and going over the next day's work, and I hear all this laughing. I go and look out, and the whole cast is in the jacuzzi smoking cigarettes and drinking beer. I go, "Great." Sure enough, towards the end of the movie, Sarah comes up to me and says, "You were right. This is really hard on me. I love these guys.'" She broke down a couple of times. Everybody got hurt. Everybody was uncomfortable. Jeff Branson had rope burns all over his arms and legs, and Daniel Franzese couldn't lift his arm up for a week after. I think they weren't close enough quite yet when we did the actual rape stuff; they were just close enough that they could still keep their distance, but also be protective of each other. There were a couple of times where I had to say, "Listen, guys. That's not your worry. That's our worry. She's safe. You guys do your job. Don't worry about the stunt coordinator; I'm talking to the stunt coordinator." Because it's my job and the AD's job and the stunt coordinator's job to worry about the safety of the actors. It all worked out in the end because everybody was such good actors and knew what we had to do, but I do wish they'd listened to me a little bit and kept to themselves a little bit more for at least the first week of shooting. (Laughs)

Beaks: The style of revenge is much different in your film. It's Rube Goldberg-esque in some ways; she's building death traps. It's interesting because, at the beginning, we see that she can't fix a stopped-up toilet.

Monroe: It's what she's gone through. She's a completely different person in the second half of the movie. She's gone from being a sweet, innocent woman from the city... to someone else. That person's dead in her. As far as the revenge stuff goes, in a way... once it goes to the revenge sequence, in a way it's sort of a fantasy. It is what every single person who's been close to anybody who's gone through anything like this would think in their head, "I'd go do that to these guys." Anyone who says they wouldn't at least think that is lying. Some people would even get ready to act on it; some people may act on it. So she becomes this everybody - every-mother, every-daughter, every-father, every-brother, every-husband - to this person. People have been known in certain situations to lift a car off of people - it's that kind of thing. Once you've been been through something and are in this situation, there's a whole other person in there that people don't even know. Everybody's capable of something else.

Beaks: I'm glad you said the second half is a fantasy. It's intimated that she's a ghostly presence. You could argue that she is dead, and that this is some kind of spiritual quest for revenge.

Monroe: It is a metaphor. Techinically, she's dead. But she's not.

Beaks: It's the scales righting themselves in a way. Are you comfortable with different readings of the film?

Monroe: This was one thing that was on the table with discussions all the time with Meir, myself and the producers. We felt that her going back to get them and using her body and her sexuality... for me, when I saw the original, that was the first very strong feeling that I got, where I went, "I'm losing my empathy to her because this is how she's going back at them. I want to see her go at them with a baseball bat, which is basically what she does in this one." That is my intention. Because of what happened to her, she is a completely different person. The devices that she came up with were a little elaborate, but they were all still very practical. You're not watching SAW; you're not watching CAPTIVITY. Yeah, she would've had to do some work to make those things happen, but I think that... I tried to show it right before she's choking Matthew (the mentally handicapped character played by Chad Lindberg), before she yanks him away... that she almost went back to Jennifer for a second, and maybe was going to not kill him. But then she goes back to this new person she is, and almost takes his head off. That was the intention, but I think there is that overall ghostly feeling to her for the rest of the movie. I would say, "You're 'Dead Jennifer' now. You're 'Zombie Jennifer'." I'd go like this, (Waves his hand across his face), and [Sarah] would drop her head. People can interpret it however they want as long as it makes sense to people. It frustrates me when people interpret it completely wrong and then are pissed off about it when it wasn't intended that way. I think if people find something in it that's really interesting and are passionate about it, I think it's great.

Beaks: I'm always very ambivalent about these movies because, on one hand, the revenge is viscerally satisfying. But I feel that in both films that she's been reduced to a feral state - so, while yes, these men deserve every awful fucking thing that comes to them, her humanity has been lost. We're rooting for a shell of what this person used to be. It can feel kind of empty.

Monroe: Some people have caught this, and some people haven't, but I was very distinct with the guys when I talked to them. I would say, "You guys are the bad guys, but I don't want to see bad guys on the screen. I don't want to see cartoon characters. We've seen to much of that in movies. If you can pull it off, somewhere in this movie when bad things are happening, I want the audience to sympathize with you. Because you're human, too." I think when you're dealing with a movie like this, I personally don't think there's anything wrong with complete bleakness. That's what I tried to do at the end of the movie. You're wondering if she's smiling or not; you're wondering if she's smiling because she's crazy, and then literally the picture and sound go out, and it's silent. I actually enjoy that in movies. I don't know if you've seen PARADISE NOW, the foreign movie about two suicide bombers: it ends with that shot of him sitting on the bus, and then it goes black; there's no music or anything during the titles; you know he's blown up that bus. That affected me so much. It made me love that film even though it upset me so much. This movie falls into that category. The movie is bleak. It's terrible. It's horrible. It's disturbing. And it affects you. And that's a good thing. (Laughs)

Beaks: Certain films have to scar.

Monroe: And leave you with a question mark. You don't always have to have an answer at the end of the film. I always tell people that. If you want to see that, go see RUNAWAY BRIDE.

Beaks: And the idea of ending with the smile...

Monroe: That's also the exact same ending shot of the original. It's funny, but there was one review I remember reading online. They were so mad, saying, "What does the director think he's doing having her smile at the end of the movie?" And then, of course, I read a little further, and he's like, "I've never seen the original." And I'm like, "Well, then you're completely uninformed!" I did the same exact title-card shot of her driving the car as the opening of the original. You could almost go, "Ooh, that looks seventies." It's supposed to! That's like me saying, "I directed this movie, but I didn't feel like I needed to see the original." (Laughs)

Beaks: Well, Werner Herzog and BAD LIEUTENANT.

Monroe: There you go.

Beaks: This is a little off-subject, but I have to remark on it because it struck me. I was watching THE PURPLE ROSE OF CAIRO last weekend--

Monroe: I've seen that a million times, but my wife had never seen it, so I TiVo'd it for her.

Beaks: Yeah, it was just on MGM HD.

Monroe: Yeah!

Beaks: And sure enough it fades out with a woman completely devastated starting to smile. It was so strange because I'd been struggling with my reaction to both I SPIT ON YOUR GRAVEs that week, and here was this weird echo in this lovely little movie I hadn't watched in years.

Monroe: It's been everywhere. You know, I joke about this all the time. I say, "If this movie said "Produced and Directed by Quentin Tarantino," everybody would be so in love with it. It's always a perspective thing with movies like this. You know what's going to be coming at you, and you've just got to hope that the right people get it. The people that care about the original and like these kind of movies will get it. And the people that don't get it maybe won't like it. It's just one of those movies going in... the distributor said, when we first started talking about the MPAA, "Just the title of the film, when we go into the MPAA we're going to be in trouble." Because they know what's coming, too. It's the same thing with people reacting to it being a remake. I've been made fun of a lot online, people going, "Oh, from the guy who directed so-and-so." They'll find a TV movie I directed and put that on there, but they won't put another dark thriller I did a few years before that. It's like, "Why don't you see the movie before you start." I don't say that from a perspective of "I want more people in the theater." I'll give you a screener to make an educated remark on it. It's just one of those things. It's going to take a little time. It's gotten a lot of momentum from the reactions at the film festivals. When we started shooting, there were thousands of people online going, "This movie will suck. I will not see this movie." Now it's dwindled down quite a bit, and people are either going "Now, I'm pumped" or "I'm going to give it a chance." But it took people who'd already seen it going, "You guys are wrong" to [turn it around]. It's been a tough one, man.

Beaks: I had a reaction to the end of your film that was kind of similar to my reaction to the end of HOSTLE. I was wondering what you were going to do to the daughter. It seemed to me in both films that if they really wanted to hurt their tormentor, they'd take away the the thing in this world that's most precious to them..

Monroe: But she never would because she's a woman. She never lets go of that. I put that line in at the end of the movie, and Sarah delivered it so well. That line wasn't in the film. When he says, "She's just an innocent girl." She kneels down to him with tears in her eyes and says, "So was I." To me as a filmmaker, anyone watching it will say, "She didn't do anything to the daughter; she just did that to scare the crap out of him. The daughter is probably sitting at her friend's house." That was also discussed internally with regard to the rating. "Do we have to show the daughter at the end?" And we were like, "Sure, if this is a TV movie or a PG-13. But why do we need to see this?" She used her as a tool because that was the only tool he was going to react to; otherwise, the guy is completely insane.

Beaks: It was interesting to see him maintaining that facade with his family.

Monroe: In the real life of the movie, that sheriff was an actor. He had his family fooled. He had the whole town fooled.

Beaks: I was shocked to learn the actor is Welsh.

Monroe: He spent the first three days there in Louisiana only talking with his Southern accent. Then he walked up to the local crew and, in his Welsh accent, went, "Did you believe my accent?" And they all fell over. He's awesome.

Beaks: One last question: Sarah's character is a writer. She's supposed to be an intellectual. That's conveyed in the film by seeing that she's got refined tastes: she drinks wine and so on. Did you ever think of giving us more of her inner thoughts or writing?

Monroe: Yeah, we had a little more. There's only one shot of seeing what she's writing, but we actually shot several paragraphs of it. When it came down to it, that was the only part that made it in there for certain reasons. And they read some of her stuff when they're tormenting her. We had just as much, or even more, than is in the original. It's such a hard balance when you're dealing with something that you know... a film that's been adopted and embraced by horror fans; there are certain things you can get in big trouble with horror fans if you do too much of. Like the beginning of the movie, people were worried that it might've been too slow, even though it wasn't even as slow as the original at the beginning. We've already had at some screenings horror fans going, "Oh, why were you guys wasting so much time at the beginning of the movie on her." And then we get other people going, "I want more about her at the beginning." You try to balance it out, and that's kind of where it landed.

Steven R. Monroe's I SPIT ON YOUR GRAVE opens today in limited release. Faithfully submitted, Mr. Beaks