Friday, February 18, 2011

I Spit on Your Grave: Unrated (2010)

I Spit on Your Grave (2010) so desperately wanted to be as controversial and shocking as I Spit on Your Grave (1978).  Unfortunately, we're a nation that has lived through 2 Hostels and 7 Saws so it takes an awful lot to shock us nowadays.  My feelings about the I Spit on Your Grave remake are very similar to how I feel about the Last House on the Left remake.  Both were good movies, but veered pretty far from the original.  So why not just make it a different movie?  Some aspects of ISOYG felt forced since they were trying to maintain some semblance of the original.  I think I would have liked it more overall if it was just a different movie, maybe inspired by the original.  

The problem with remaking/updating these 70s movies is that a lot of stuff really isn't as plausible nowadays.  It's hard enough to believe that a young, attractive woman would elect to spend a summer in a cabin by herself, but seriously, without even a landline?  So obviously, the premise of the movie is the same.  Young writer Jennifer Hills takes a break from the city for the summer to write in peace in a cabin in the woods.  This time the cabin is in the south (unclear where) and little Miss Jennifer brings along enough pot and booze to bring down a rhino.

One night, when imbibing in said booze and pot, some creepers that she met earlier at the gas station decide to pay her a little visit.  Now, I found the guys in the original to be way more creepy and disturbing, but it was also hard for me to get past the fact that one of them was the gay guy from Mean Girls.  As to be expected, they torment and assault her, until she escapes and runs into the town sheriff.  Sadly for Jennifer, he is just as demented as the townies and delights in hurting her as well.

As the story goes, she's left for dead as the men move on with their chauvenistic hick lives.  But not for long.  They all begin to get clues that Jennifer is very much alive, and she starts picking them off one by one.  The deaths in this movie are definitely different from the original.  There's no seduction going on here, as Jennifer takes the men off guard and tortures them with various implements she discovers in a tool shed.  The kills were awesome and gory, and were my favorite part of this movie.

I'd definitely say that I Spit on Your Grave (1978) was a better and more impactful movie than this one.  But as remakes go, this was actually pretty good, although I think they could have done a better job casting Jennifer Hill.  I think Sarah Butler sort of phoned it in, and half the time she looked more like a bored Jersey girl than a femme fatale.  The ending was so confusing because (kinda spoilers) I have no idea how she could have gotten away with it since she made it clear to others what she was doing.

1 comments:

Maynard Morrissey said...

well, I made it through countless torture porns and other gore shockers - and still, this remake has shocked me more than any other violent stuff of the last few years. A terrific remake!