I
SPIT
ON
YOUR
GRAVE
With
Camille
Keaton,
Eron
Tabor,
Richard
Pace,
Anthony
Nichols,
Gunter
Kleeman
Directed
by
Meir
Zarchi
In
the
video
nasty
days
of
the
‘80s,
this
was
a
title
that
had
everyone
searching
for
its
controversy.
Not
a
horror
by
any
means,
it
does
involve
the
brutality
of
violent
gang
rape
and
resulting
deadly
retribution.
A
female
writer
rents
a
summerhouse
way
out
of
the
city
in
a
boring,
small
riverside
town.
She
is
menaced,
beaten
and
raped
by
four
idle
scumbags.
Then
she
plots
to
get
them
back.
While
we
can
easily
dismiss
it
as
mere
exploitation
that
has
the
audience
look
at
the
harrowing
assault
on
a
defenseless
woman
with
perversion
and
the
deadly,
violent
payback,
it
leaves
you
with
the
dichotomy
of
violation
and
justified
vengeance
and
whether
we’re
shocked
or
titillated
at
both
cases,
or
one
of
the
two.
But
for
the
censors
to
decide
that
for
us
is
unacceptable.
This
movie
was
banned
in
South
Africa
for
years,
and
recently
released
with
only
a
16
age
restriction.
Go
figure.
Depending
on
who
you
are,
the
moral
balancing
act
will
have
you
think
about
it
on
more
than
a
cinematic
level.
We
know
rape
is
an
abomination,
as
with
murder,
and
if
this
film
is
a
deterrent
for
future
rapists,
fantastic
-
but
I
always
fear
that
even
one
nut
gets
aroused
by
something
like
this
and
doesn’t
pay
heed
to
the
final
“message”.
The
violent
woman’s
revenge
movie
was
always
an
underground
genre
and
never
really
got
the
big
budget
make-over,
until
Tarantino
resurrected
it
with
his
Kill
Bill
flicks.
Stylistically
the
film
is
quite
poorly
made,
from
bad
jumps
cuts
and
continuity
to
poor
sound
and
voice
dubbing.
But,
then
we
must
remember
that
a
producer
would
struggle
to
get
financing
for
a
film
like
this,
at
a
time
like
that.
The
special
FX
are
not
very
blatant
or
gory,
but
the
dick
chopped
in
the
bath
sequence
is
a
classic
of
inference,
not
having
to
show
anything
as
the
implication
has
the
viewer
picture
worse
than
they
could’ve
managed
with
a
piece
of
rubber
latex.
A
Nice
surprise
was
the
widescreen
presentation
of
this
VHS
copy.
4
/
C
-
PB
1
2
3
4
5
6
A
-
B
-
C
|