Movie Review: I Spit on Your Grave (2010)

The movie stars Sarah Butler, Rodney Eastman, Jeff Branson, Andrew Howard and Chad Lindberg.

My wife decided to record this film off of one of our movie channels a few days ago and we finally had an opportunity to watch it last night. Originally, I thought the plot sounded a little too similar to the film The Last House on the Left and, because of that, I wasn't sure if I would enjoy the movie or not. However, it turned out to be pretty decent.

The best way to describe this film is it would have been more appropriately named if the filmmakers would have called it "What Not to Do." Hills makes a variety of mistakes early on in the movie. This started when she stopped at a gas station and, despite an uneasy feeling about the Deliverance-like atmosphere she encounters, volunteers information about where she's staying, alone. At that point, she might as well just handed the men a key and told them "please come rape me," because it was obvious what was on their minds.

On top of it, she had an entire shed full of sharp objects that could have made a handy weapon. Yet, despite plenty of clues she wasn't alone and was likely in danger, she elected to ignore her uneasy feeling, leave the potential weapons in the shed and even padlocked the door. 

That being said, despite her lack of common sense, the movie did still turn out to be very entertaining. For one, unlike many other victims in movies like this, she did prove she wasn't afraid to stand up for herself and even managed to temporarily gain the upper hand and escape before the sheriff (Howard) showed up and gave his assistance. The fact she was strong enough to try to avoid being raped did help set up the second half of the movie, when she came back for her revenge.

The one thing that did surprise me a bit about this movie was the intensity. The gang rape was stretched out over quite a long period of time and became more and more brutal with each minute to the point it did, admittedly, give me some chills, especially since there seemed to be no remorse from the majority of her attackers, including the sheriff, who even had a conversation with his young daughter while the rape was occurring.

The intensity carried over to her revenge, with her using some brutal (and cringe-worthy) methods to humiliate the men who raped her before killing them. I don't squirm too often when watching movies like this. But, some of the scenes in the second half of this film, especially the one with the fishhooks, had me doing just that.

My only real complaint about this film is it never really explains why it takes her a month to take her revenge and how she managed to stay hidden that long (not to mention, where she found the clothes). I'm assuming it was so she could heal up and plan her revenge. But, since they don't show her during that time, it's hard to know for sure what was going through her head, especially since she had plenty of time to simply escape, go up river and find someone to help her. Of course, to be fair, her simply telling the authorities wouldn't have been as entertaining.

I had some doubts early on. But, overall, I thought this was an entertaining movie that was worth taking the time to watch. It's a little gory at times and, if you have a weak stomach, it's best to keep that in mind. However, if you haven't seen the film, I do recommend watching it.

My Grade: A