I Spit On Your Grave [2010]

A remake so unnecessary I should get paid to watch this

Horror films are such an exciting genre that I can watch almost anything within this framework. I don't mind spurting blood, sprouting tendons or rednecks chasing teens in the woods. What makes me look away in movies is reality, as I did with I Spit On Your Grave.

A remake of the 1970s film of the same name, it tells the story of a young writer, the beautiful Jennifer, who travels to the middle of nowhere to finish her latest work, writing in the peace and quiet of nature without distractions. Already in the petrol station it becomes clear that there will be distractions in the neighbourhood when the local "men" start to make Jennifer uncomfortable.

The next 30 minutes are the most unpleasant thing I've seen in a movie in a long time. Jennifer is raped by a gang of four men, not once, but four times. This scene is prolonged, stretched and shot with sickening precision, bringing the viewer mostly to the brink of nausea. There is no point in showing the events, it's an attention-seeking ploy to make the film more talky by using its reputation, but the result is just an unpleasant viewing experience in which the point of showing the events is completely obscured.

Jennifer is left staggering on the brink of death and she escapes murder by jumping into the river. Soon afterwards, four men get a taste of what revenge is all about. One by one the men die at Jennifer's hands in the most inventive ways, which turned out to be the only good thing about the film.

I Spit On Your Grave disgusts at the beginning but improves towards the end, the death scenes of the men are entertaining, if you can call it that in a film like this. The revenge scenes offer nothing new but are thematically very fair and therefore, as a female viewer, I couldn't help but be pleased with the 'twist'. Why did they have to remake it in the first place when this is a fairly exact copy of the original, isn't one film on a distasteful subject enough?

What makes the film cruel is that gang rape is not at any level a fictional thing but the truest reality around the world; to me, dabbling in such things is different from watching Jigsaw's antics and I hope I don't come across a similar theme for a long time. Reality is always more cruel than fiction and this film proved it. I wouldn't recommend for the squeamish, though, revenge can indeed be bittersweet... Two stars come only and only for the inventiveness towards the end of the film and the fact that revenge always works.