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Monday, January 31, 2011

I Spit on Your Remake

12:38 AM / Reviews / 7 Comments

Note: in the interests of coherence, this review refers to the original 1978 film by its original title, DAY OF THE WOMAN, and the 2010 remake as I SPIT ON YOUR GRAVE (the title by which its predecessor is also best known).

No two ways about it, Meir Zarchi's DAY OF THE WOMAN is as far from a perfect film as you can get. It's grubby, ugly, clunky and in places downright silly, and everything about it shows a lack of experience on both sides of the camera. There's also a certain sense of honesty to it, though - an emotional rawness that shines through the clunky dialogue, dodgy acting and general lack of spit and polish. So while I would in no way describe it as the best exploitation movie ever made (or even the best rape revenge movie), everyone with at least a passing interest in the seedier side of cinema owes it to themselves to see it.

Enter the remake, which in the grand tradition of modern re-imaginings of classic (or at least reasonably notorious) horror movies of the 70s and 80s spruces things up with a slicker script, more polished visuals and a fresh-faced, good-looking leading lady who wasn't even born when the original was released. The leading lady in this case is Sarah Butler, who prior to I SPIT ON YOUR GRAVE mostly appeared in television guest roles. She's arguably the best thing about the remake in the same way that her predecessor, Camille Keaton, was the best thing about the original. She doesn't go anything like as far as Keaton in terms of on-screen nudity or the sheer level of violence to which her character is subjected, but she plays the part with conviction and, for a mainstream actress, seems fairly gung-ho about it all (certainly more than Sara Paxton in the recent remake of THE LAST HOUSE ON THE LEFT, for instance).

Beyond Butler's surprising ballsiness, it's pretty much as you would expect. The same basic plot is followed - young aspiring author Jennifer Hills ventures out into the country to write her novel, is set upon and raped by a band of local nogoodniks, survives against the odds and knocks them off one by one - but with the odd tweak here and there to keep us guessing. There are five rapists this time rather than the usual four, there's more build-up to the actual sexual assault Jennifer endures (the initial abuse is more psychological this time round), and her ultimate revenge is considerably more elaborate... and far-fetched too, which is quite an achievement considering that Keaton's Jennifer convinced one of her attackers that she actually enjoyed being raped by him, persuaded him to join her in the bathtub, hacked off his genitals and left him groaning "That's so good it hurts!" The deaths are also thematically appropriate to how each rapist treated Jennifer, and the various protracted deaths are accompanied by witty quips from Ms. Hills, which are delivered with the appropriate degree of venom but feel overly cute (the original's straightforward "Suck it, bitch!" they ain't). The grimy, quasi-documentary look of the original is replaced by pristine digital photography with a bleached-out colour palette, fast cutting and even the odd hint of CGI. It does the job, but it looks like every other film of its kind.

It's also, when all said and done, relatively toothless. The psychological torture Jennifer undergoes in the early scenes is pretty nasty stuff, but the actual rapes themselves are fairly tastefully done, if indeed any rape scene can be done tastefully. Whereas the rapes in the original tended to take place in wide shots with the camera unblinkingly capturing the whole thing, the equivalent scenes in the remake consists of lots of tight close-ups of eyes and faces, and at one point the director, Steven Monroe, even fades to black, sparing us the worst of the ordeal - something Zarchi would never have done. While there's something to be said for leaving things to the audience's imagination, the unflinching nature of the original's depiction of Jennifer's ordeal somehow felt more honest. Here, it's clear that it's all just movie magic, with the technique overshadowing the horror of what's actually happening. Even the nudity is carefully choreographed. A backside here, a nipple flash there - Butler, despite being game for a lot more than your average American actress, doesn't have Keaton's lack of self-consciousness in front of the camera. Again, it all just adds to the sense of artificiality.

Where the film really fumbles, and the director makes some questionable choices, is with regard to the aftermath of the assault. In the original, we rejoined Jennifer fairly quickly and got to witness her pulling herself together - including, crucially, piecing together the pages of her novel that her attackers ripped up. Although this was an admittedly cheesy metaphor, it summed up Zarchi's good intentions, and made it clear that what we were watching was very much a story told from the victim's point of view. The remake goes down the curious route of focusing on the rapists during its second half, keeping Jennifer as a largely off-screen presence. Because we don't get to witness Jennifer recovering physically and coming to terms with what has happened her, the emotional core feels like it has been ripped out. It also gives the impression that the director is more interested in the villains than his supposed heroine. Again, there's a place for this sort of approach, but this film is not trying to provide a reasoned insight into the twisted mind of a rapist - it's a gory revenge fantasy in which a rape victim takes matters into her own hands.

And ultimately, that's what I SPIT ON YOUR GRAVE is. In spite of its flaws, DAY OF THE WOMAN ticked all the boxes required to function as a shlocky exploitation flick while at the same time managing to be something more than that. The remake is both too tame to function as pure grindhouse sleaze and too trashy to be taken particularly seriously. It's perhaps worth a look if for no other reason than to see how they actually managed to turn one of the most infamous "video nasties" of all time into a polished piece of workmanship, but the original, warts and all, is the one that will last. 5/10

And so the winner, as correctly predicted by Trond, is Jennifer Hills.

7 Comments

 
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