But here's the catch: It's kind of worth watching.
It's unequivocally disturbing and difficult to watch - especially the first 45 minutes - but it does raise some questions, and unlike many other flicks of this ilk, it actually has a pretty awesome payoff. I don't know how many times I've suffered through horrible scenes of torture with the hopes of having some sort of visceral catharsis only to reach the climax of the film and me responding with, "Really? That's it?" in a completely pissed off manner - I'm looking at you, remake of Last House on the Left. At least with the remake to the 1978 exploitation classic of the same name, I Spit on Your Grave, offers a "reward" for dealing with the vicious rape/torture sequences. There's a payoff for watching what I consider to be the most dastardly of crimes to be committed - rape. Of course, you can make the argument that pedophilia is just as bad, if not worse, and I'm not one to argue over that. They're both disgusting and the less I have to think about both of those actions, the better of I believe I will be.
So, I'm not going to write up a review of I Spit on Your Grave, because it's just too tough. Instead, I'm going to try something a bit new, where I kind of just throw up some bullet-point-style ideas that I had whilst watching the movie, and some other observations I made about the flick. Think of it as a retroactive viewing diary, or something like that. I hope it's worth your time; hell, I hope it's worth my time. But, as a certain pothead once said to a certain teacher during a certain speed of time at a certain high school, "If I'm here, and you're here, doesn't that make it our time?" Indeed. So, let's have at it then, shall we?
Random observations whilst watching I Spit on Your Grave:
- Any type of rape-movie should be watched with at least one other person, preferably someone you can talk to and make jokes of some sort during endless rape scenes. It helps you avoid the pain of enduring such a sequence.
- I know it's a movie, but do real girls (I know so few...) really think it's a good idea to go off into the middle of hillbilly heaven to write a novel at some dilapidated cabin? Alone? Really?!?!
- Do girls, stupid enough to actually go ahead and decide to do the above, really think it's a good idea to insult a hick hitting on you at some gas station that looks like it was made to teach young inbred men how to properly rape women? Especially when he's surrounded by Greaseball-Hick-Fonzi and Minnesota Fats' retarded great-nephew?
- Before I die, I want to watch one horror movie in the cell phone-era that doesn't have a crucial plot point hinge on the fact that the cell phone has been somehow compromised. I'm so fucking over cell phones not having reception in certain areas (it's 2011, even fucking Antarctica has reception by now). At least Jennifer stupidly drops her phone in the toilet, and they don't rely on the "no reception" excuse, but still... It's frustrating. Might as well just have the phone smashed right away, or something like that. It really gets to me. This is why I love pagers; they never fail you when you need them the most. That, and I like to wear them on my upside down visor.
- People down south have got to be the dumbest people in America. I know I'm profiling, but they just sound horrible. Really, it's disgusting. Nothing grosses me out more than people with southern accents; it doesn't help that the majority of them have some sort of confederate flag regalia on themselves or pickup trucks at all times. Southern folk wanna know why everyone else in the country thinks they're so stupid? IT'S BECAUSE YOU STILL HAVE CONFEDERATE FLAG REGALIA, DUMBFUCKS!!!!! I don't know if they're so stupid to think that slavery is actually okay, or if they're just so fucking stupid that they think that the confederate flag has some sort of symbolism about individuality. Either way, they're fucking morons, and the sheer fact that confederate flags even exist is disgusting and deplorable. Oh, and the accents are disgusting. I know some really smart, intelligent people come from the south; one of my favorite writers of all time, Mark Twain, is from that area, but it still doesn't deter me from thinking they're all pretty stupid.
- Even sheriffs in the south are scumbags.
- When did rape scenes in movies get to be so fucking long? I remember watching Cape Fear when I was like six, and DeNiro bit that chick's ear off, then the scene just kind of faded to black. As a six year old, I thought two things: 'Why the fuck are my parents letting me watch this?' and 'Holy shit, that is the scariest man in the world!' But that scene was perfect - it let you know what the hell was going on, but Scorsese didn't force you to watch the rape uncomfortably. And it worked. Now, any time I watch a movie that has a rape scene, it seems to last like 1/3 of the movie's run time. I don't get it at all; the scenes cannot be fun to shoot - it's got to be uncomfortable to be the male actor, pretending to rape a woman violently and all that, and I suspect it's even less fun for the woman. But what do I know? I do know that it is unpleasant to view such extended scenes of violent rape, and I will never understand the need to make these scenes ridiculously long.
-The only conceivable way to avoid murder after a rape in a movie nowadays is throwing yourself into a river.
- I'm slightly disappointed that this movie doesn't feature a "rape shower." You know, the scene in a Lifetime movie where a woman is violated, and then feels that the only way to properly express their trauma is to take a steaming hot shower while in the fetal position. It's such a staple in shitty movies that feature female violation, and while I understand it's wrong to make jokes about rape showers, I can't also help but think that it's wrong to make a movie for Lifetime. My girlfriend will kill me if she ever reads this. Good news for me: She never reads these.
- It's never a good idea to videotape a rape in a movie. It will come back to haunt you. And, if you're fat, you may very well have to try to eat the tape. I wonder if, upon digestion, the tape becomes unspooled and you have to poop for like forty five minutes whilst celluloid exits your rectum.
- Yeah, people down south are stupid. And disgusting.
- There's a mentally challenged individual in the movie who is forced to take part in the rape. Jennifer gets revenge on him, and I can't help but wonder whether or not it's okay to kill a mentally challenged individual for raping you (or someone else).
- Is there a punishment that a rapist doesn't deserve? It's a great question that the movie kinda-sorta pauses to ask the audience, but doesn't really care all that much about. I've never been raped, and I will never know what it is like to be a woman in that position, as I am a man (I feel the need to remind people daily that I'm a man), but I have a hard time believing that torturing a rapist in a myriad of ways could ever be conceived as "going too far." It is an incredibly disgusting action, and prison is too nice for these scumbags. I don't know if it would be very helpful for a rape victim to torture her tormentor(s), but I gotta say, it would be interesting to see what some people could come up with.
- Fishhooks through eyelids is disturbing, yet pretty damn awesome in this flick. In all my weird conversations with friends, this has never come up, surprisingly, but man it's gross. Kudos to the filmmakers for thinking up something so disturbing. Fish guts in the eyes of the victim is even more gross, as it allows birds to come eat his eyeballs out. Don't know how realistic that is, but it's yucky. And a decent form of revenge.
- I love that greaseball-hick-Fonzi is contrapted in the bathtub like that. It's an amazing test of endurance that he inevitably fails, and it's gotta suck to know that you're too weak to keep yourself from falling in acid. Yucky.
- I wonder when movies will simply stop pulling teeth out during torture scenes. I have thought, for a while, that it would be way more gruesome (and disturbing) to simply use pliers to not remove the teeth forcibly, but to rather crush them while they're still in the mouth. That would hurt soooo bad.
- Well, this marks the first time I've seen a man's penis - or other genitalia, I'm not too positive if it's testicles as well - removed and then shoved into his mouth. Nice and twisted.
- Shotgun up a sheriff's ass? Now I've seen everything. I feel bad for the sheriff actor, as now his resume must read, "Victim who was anally raped by a shotgun." He just kissed his chance good-bye at a guest-starring spot on House.
- People from the south still disgust me.
I don't know if I have much more to say about this movie than all of this. I am not going to tell you to watch it, and I'm not going to tell you to avoid it. My audience (of two... I'm growing in notoriety, suckers) doesn't really use my advice anyway, so I'm going to leave it in your hands. Be warned, though, if you watch this movie, you might not like what you see. And if you do like what you see, start saving up for a psychiatrist. Weirdo.
No comments:
Post a Comment