It's the one sheet, that image, and that tagline that damns the film in the minds of so many, but heaven help me, I'll always think of 'I Spit On Your Grave' as a genuinely arresting, bordering on good film. To this day I still don't really consider it an exploitation film, certainly not in the sense that 'SS Hell Camp' or the 'Ilsa' films are. Maybe it's pretentions work for me.
No one in the cast attended Juilliard, and I'm certain the budget could be cut out of the craft services for 'Boss Bitches #19' and still leave cash for hot buttered scones inbetween pegging scenes, but I believe that Meir Zarchi really made something here.
The first half of the film is very strong stuff, haunting and aggressively ugly. The second half, or more specifically the climax, suffers when Jennifer Hill's revenge plot kind of flies off the handle into absurdity, the speedboat massacre immediately springs to mind.
The one scene that always gets me, outside of Stanley's violent, misogynist freak-out involving a rather uncourteously placed beer bottle, is the castration scene. It's not the cut, the cut is nothing, even Johnny doesn't really feel it; it's that first glop of arterial spray that shoots out from under the bath water. His look sells it.
That split second when he sees it, that "what the fuck was that?" look on his face, that "did that come from me?" look, and then he just goes into it, and despite Johnny being a digusting, rapist shitheel, you feel it anyway, because we all fear a certain violation of our bodies.
Great fucking scene, from top to bottom.
No one in the cast attended Juilliard, and I'm certain the budget could be cut out of the craft services for 'Boss Bitches #19' and still leave cash for hot buttered scones inbetween pegging scenes, but I believe that Meir Zarchi really made something here.
The first half of the film is very strong stuff, haunting and aggressively ugly. The second half, or more specifically the climax, suffers when Jennifer Hill's revenge plot kind of flies off the handle into absurdity, the speedboat massacre immediately springs to mind.
The one scene that always gets me, outside of Stanley's violent, misogynist freak-out involving a rather uncourteously placed beer bottle, is the castration scene. It's not the cut, the cut is nothing, even Johnny doesn't really feel it; it's that first glop of arterial spray that shoots out from under the bath water. His look sells it.
That split second when he sees it, that "what the fuck was that?" look on his face, that "did that come from me?" look, and then he just goes into it, and despite Johnny being a digusting, rapist shitheel, you feel it anyway, because we all fear a certain violation of our bodies.
Great fucking scene, from top to bottom.
