I SPIT ON YOUR GRAVE (2010) -- DVD Review by Porfle

 Originally posted on 1/30/2011

 

As with Meir Zarchi's 1978 original, the 2010 remake of I SPIT ON YOUR GRAVE tells the simple story of a woman named Jennifer Hills who gets savagely gang-raped at her summer home in the country and then goes on a brutal revenge spree against her attackers.  I found the new version somewhat less satisfying as a film, but as an eyeballs-deep wallow in utter, sadistic depravity, it takes the bloody brass ring.

Judging from the "Dukes of Hazzard" accents, the location seems to have been switched from Yankie Land to somewhere way down South, where most of the demented yokels of moviedom seem to live these days.  (Naturally, one of them wears a Confederate flag bandana on his head.)  Another big difference is that Zarchi's film took the time to establish a deceptively tranquil mood before shattering it, with Jennifer's sense of security and well-being robbed along with everything else. 

Here, the music sets an ominous tone right off the bat, and Jennifer (Sarah Butler) is edgy and uncomfortable with her surroundings as soon as she arrives in the remote community.  Johnny the gas pump jockey (Jeff Branson) reveals his crudeness immediately rather than deceiving her with a folksy fascade (which this version of the character would be incapable of doing anyway) and the two start off on bad terms.


In addition to the interchangeable Stanley and Andy characters, the slow-witted Matthew (Chad Lindberg) returns as a plumber who fixes Jennifer's toilet and goes ga-ga when she gives him a friendly peck.  Johnny and company find such provocative behavior intolerable and, as they drool over Stanley's peeping-Tom videos of her, resolve to teach the uppity city gal a lesson while helping their mentally-challenged mascot lose his virginity.

What follows is the nocturnal home invasion which becomes the basis for Jennifer's inevitable revenge, with writer Stuart Morse pulling out all the stops to make these guys as unforgivably reprehensible as possible.  As with Zarchi's film, the sequence is designed to justify the filmmakers' indulgence in extreme violence against the rapists later on.  Still, it lacks the lingering impact and immediacy of the original (not to mention Camille Keaton's searingly realistic performance) and seems almost by-the-numbers, as though the film can't wait to get it over with and fast-forward to the juicy revenge stuff. 

At this point, the remake starts to throw in some new wrinkles, such as the introduction of a not-so-helpful sheriff (Andrew Howard), which makes it easier to judge on its own terms.  In fact, once Jennifer disappears from the film for what turns out to be quite a spell (which, unfortunately, means that we're not nearly as engaged with her character this time around), it's almost a completely different story.  When she finally returns, she has become a hardcore killing machine who stalks and dispatches her prey like a cross between Jason Voorhees and Rube Goldberg.

 
The second half of the original movie is positively sedate compared to this one, which is pretty much a torture porn free-for-all.  The filmmakers go all out to surpass the 1978 version by taking it to a new level that's beyond gratuitous.  "What are the most ghastly things you could do to a guy?" they seem to be thinking.  "Whatever they are, we get to show them, hee-hee, because by gum, these scumbags raped Jennifer!"  As such, the execution scenes are diabolically elaborate and profoundly depraved--so much so, in fact, that you might even start feeling sorry for these guys after awhile.

The DVD from Anchor Bay is in 2.35:1 anamorphic widescreen with Dolby Digital 5.1 sound.  Subtitles are in English and Spanish.  Extras include a director-producer commentary, a "making of" featurette, deleted scenes, trailers, and a radio spot.

Whether you're rooting for Jennifer or just turned on by this kind of stuff, the cumulative payoff is pretty intense.  If you fit into neither category, then you're probably watching the way wrong movie.  Hard to believe that anything could make the 1978 I SPIT ON YOUR GRAVE look like a model of restraint in comparison, but the no-holds-barred (and, let's face it, repulsive) remake manages to do so.  While it fails to surpass the original in some ways, fans of brutal cinematic sadism and extreme gore definitely won't be disappointed.  

I SPIT ON YOUR GRAVE (2010) -- DVD Review by Porfle

I SPIT ON YOUR GRAVE (1978) -- DVD Review by Porfle

 Originally posted 1/28/11

 

No doubt about it--rape has always been a prime motivator for the revenge movie.  Whether by the victim herself or a husband, lover, or relative, audiences tend to excuse whatever horrendous acts they commit in the name of vigilante justice, and even cheer them on.  Open with a rape scene, and the filmmakers are free to make with the bloody violence.

Such is the case with the infamous I SPIT ON YOUR GRAVE, aka "Day of the Woman" (1978), one of the most extreme examples of this unsettling subgenre.  (One of its alternate titles is the built-in spoiler "The Rape and Revenge of Jennifer Hill.")  To me, the debates about the "deeper meaning" that this film has stirred up since its release are all a bunch of hogwash--depending on who you ask, it's either virulently misogynistic or "the ultimate feminist movie."  I think it's really just a case of cooking up a scenario in which the bad guys are so irredeemably vile that the filmmakers are free to depict the most violent and gruesome revenge sequences their hearts desire, and if people read more into it then so much the better.



Although writer-director Meir Zarchi's inspiration for the script was a real incident in which he gave aid to a woman who'd been raped in the park, the film is hardly a "Lifetime" special.  What it does, though, and quite effectively, is to present one of the screen's most convincing depictions of the physical and emotional devastation endured by a victim of violent rape.  The film is no less exploitative for this, yet the fact that Zarchi treats this aspect of it so seriously prevents it from being anywhere near the irredeemable trash it might have been.

Big city girl Jennifer Hills (Camille Keaton) sets things into motion when she drives to a rented summer home in the country to commune with nature and work on her novel.  The attractive stranger draws the attention of four unsavory locals, led by pump jockey Johnny (Eron Tabor).  Turned on by her looks but resentful of what they imagine to be a teasing and superior attitude, they begin to harrass Jennifer and then brutally rape her in a marathon ordeal, setting the stage for her bloody revenge.

These guys are the most cartoonishly sexist pigs that Zarchi could cook up--they're even vile and offensive when they're fishing.  Jennifer, on the other hand, is as sweet and innocent as the heroine in a dark fairytale, which this somewhat resembles.  We see enough of her friendly and open demeanor in the early scenes to sense it being destroyed during her dehumanizing assault.

The early part of the film is very slow, almost tranquil, as Jennifer is lulled into a false sense of security in her hammock under the trees or floating on sun-dappled water in a canoe.  Twenty minutes in, the assault begins and doesn't end until over half an hour later.  The utter simplicity of the story gives Zarchi time to dwell on the key events and explore them fully enough to make us feel as though we're experiencing them too--not as one of the rapists, as some contend, but through Jennifer's eyes.  The fact that almost the entire story is told from her point of view, and never encourages us to identify with her tormentors, is what makes it tolerable.



The almost cinema verite feeling of the film is largely due to the complete lack of music (ambient sounds and silence establish the mood) and the director's matter-of-fact, near documentary style.  This gives the harsher events an inexorable quality and a sense of immediacy.  There's so little film artifice to hide behind that viewers can't distance themselves from the terrible things that are happening, and there are no timely cutaways to relieve the tension.  When the final and worst attack occurs in Jennifer's own house, it's as though we're in the same room.  This is probably one of the things that bothers some people so much about this movie.

After the halfway mark, Jennifer's long, contemplative healing process gives way to her resolve to get revenge herself rather than go to the police.  At this point the film shifts noticeably from realism to improbable fantasy, with Jennifer becoming a fearless, seductive femme fatale with almost supernatural cunning and luck.  Those looking for the charnel-house massacre promised by the film's famous tagline may be disappointed--while Jennifer's killings display showmanship, only the cringe-inducing bathtub scene is truly shocking.  These scenes do, however, provide the necessary cathartic resolution to all that has gone before.  

Keaton (who later married director Zarchi) is a good enough actress for the most part, but during the rape scenes she becomes harrowingly convincing.  At times it's as though she isn't even an actress performing for the camera but someone who's being caught on film during an actual event.  The actors playing Johnny's friends give broad performances, especially Richard Pace as the semi-retarded Matthew, which serve the story while distancing us from them as human beings.  Eron Tabor as Johnny is a better actor and his character is fleshed out more--he has a family and talks fondly about his kids--giving an added dimension to the film's notorious latter-half setpiece.



The Director's Cut DVD from Anchor Bay is in 1.78:1 anamorphic widescreen with Dolby Digital 5.1 sound, and is definitely a step up from the Wizard Video VHS edition I bought back in the 80s.  Extras include a half-hour interview with Meir Zarchi, a poster and stills gallery, trailers, TV and radio spots, a clip of the alternate main title "Day of the Woman", and two commentary tracks.  Zarchi's is informative while the one with drive-in movie critic Joe Bob Briggs is delightfully entertaining.

Despite the horrified misgivings of a number of critics, including an aghast Roger Ebert, I can't imagine very many people besides the truly twisted few who would identify with the rapists in this story and vicariously enjoy their actions.  As for myself, I find I SPIT ON YOUR GRAVE to be a meticulously well-made film that's too sympathetic to its female protagonist to be as reprehensible as it's often made out to be.  An interesting thing to consider is that, after the more realistic events of the first half, what happens in the rest of the movie is so wildly improbable that it might simply be Jennifer's own revenge fantasy. 


Read our review of the 2010 remake here

I SPIT ON YOUR GRAVE (1978) -- DVD Review by Porfle

THE GREEN SLIME (1968) -- Movie Review by Porfle

 

Originally posted on 6/9/21

 

Currently watching: THE GREEN SLIME (1968), a collaboration between Italy, Japan, and the USA, with the disparate cinematic styles of each clashing together to create a wild space opera-slash-monster movie that's both exhilaratingly strange and delightfully bad.

Some time in the future an orbiting space station detects an asteroid on a collision course with Earth. Commander Jack Rankin (TV star Robert Horton, "A Man Called Shenandoah", "Wagon Train") is called out of retirement to head a team of astronauts to take off from the space station, land on the asteroid, and plant bombs that will blow it to smithereens.

The team does so in what is basically a small-scale dry run for the later epic ARMAGEDDON, but this time the astronauts bring back an unexpected souvenir from the asteroid in the form of a strange green slime which, when charged with electricity, grows into a horde of grotesque, very hostile alien creatures with pincer-tipped tentacles and one big red eye. 

 

 

Feeding upon the space station's various energy sources, the creatures grow in size and multiply rapidly until the station's inhabitants begin dying horribly one by one and end up fighting hand-to-tentacle for their very survival.

Hence, the entire second half of the film is a furious and at times incomprehensible series of frantic battle sequences splattered with red blood and green slime, as the space soldiers struggle to protect the station's medical and scientific personnel as well as other civilians.

To make matters worse, Rankin's romantic rival, Commander Vince Elliott (Richard Jaeckel, THE DIRTY DOZEN, STARMAN) chafes at having his command usurped by Rankin, with the mutual object of their affection, beautiful medical officer Dr. Lisa Benson (Luciana Paluzzi, THUNDERBALL, MUSCLE BEACH PARTY), adding fuel to the fire with her very presence.

 

 
From the film's first scenes, we're treated to an environment almost totally comprised of miniatures--cityscapes, rocket launch pads and spaceships, the rotating space station itself, etc.--which sometimes approach the quality of the usual Toho/Kaiju stuff we're used to, while at other times are markedly cheap and fake-looking.

Space station and spaceship interiors have the low-budget look of the old live-action Saturday morning sci-fi shows from Filmation such as "Space Academy" and "Jason of Star Command", and even such earlier series as "Rocky Jones, Space Ranger." On the plus side, vivid colors abound in most scenes, especially those involving the approaching asteroid, giving them a pleasing comic-book quality.

The low-rent feel of the film also shows in the artless, almost amateurish direction and camerawork, which, combined with the freaky slime-monster costumes and other slapdash special effects, make the film either an object of boredom and derision or, for bad movie lovers such as myself, a delightfully dizzying wallow in junk-movie joy.

 

Amazingly, this movie was directed by the same man, Kinji Fukasaku, who would go on to helm the spectacular sci-fi classic BATTLE ROYALE in 2000.  The consistently tense screenplay also boasts as its co-writer another familiar name--Bill Finger, who, along with Bob Kane, created the legendary comic book character, Batman.

Square-jawed and stern, Horton's Commander Rankin could almost have stepped right out of an episode of "Thunderbirds Are Go!" Jaeckle gets a rare chance to stretch his considerable acting chops in a major role, while Paluzzi has a cult appeal all her own as the woman who keeps the film's romantic triangle fired up while protecting her patients from the rampaging slime creatures.

While none of this looks or feels convincing for a second, THE GREEN SLIME is such a relentless onslaught of splashy, full-tilt space madness that one can hardly fail to enjoy it to some degree, on its own oddball terms, as an old-fashioned space opera laced with cheesy 1960s mod stylings and juvenile Monster Kid fun.

THE GREEN SLIME (1968) -- Movie Review by Porfle

13 -- DVD Review by Porfle

Originally posted on 10/28/11

 

In THE DEER HUNTER, a game of Russian Roulette proved so overwhelmingly intense that, as I sat watching it in the theater, I wasn't even sure if I'd be able to get through it.  Géla Babluani's 13 (2010) gives us an entire movie based on the game but manages only to be moderately entertaining without coming anywhere near that level of tension.

Sam Riley is Vince, an average young guy whose family--mom, dad, and two sisters--has hit rock bottom financially after the father is badly injured.  Stumbling across an illicit Russian Roulette tournament involving some very high-stakes betting, Vince manages to take the place of one of the entrants in hopes of surviving to solve his family' money problems.  Needless to say, this descent down the rabbit hole will be a nightmare with the spectre of sudden, violent death hovering over him every minute.

Riley gives a restrained but effective performance and makes his character easy to root for.  Vince is believably freaked out during the first round while quickly getting more hardened to the game out of necessity.  When he makes it to the final round, which we know he will since the opening flash-forward gives it away, he's still reluctant but his initial hesitance has been overcome by sheer desperation.



Technically, 13 is as good as it needs to be but no more, relying on the inherent fascination we derive from seeing a group of men standing in a circle, each with his gun pointed at the head of the man in front of him and then firing on command, with some surviving and others thudding clumsily to the floor.  With each round the stakes rise along with the number of bullets in each gun.

Even so, we never really get that caught up in the game itself, and it's the sketchily-drawn characters who provide the most interest.  As Jasper, Jason Statham is likable as usual even playing a rat who plucks his brother Ronald Lynn (Ray Winstone) out of a mental hospital to compete in the game.  Winstone is an imposing figure, even more so when Ronnie's meds start wearing off and he becomes increasingly hostile both to Vince and to Jasper for using him. 

Mickey Rourke is interesting to watch even when he's coasting through a role as he does here, playing a convict named Jefferson who's been whisked out of a Mexican prison and into the competition against his will.  Rapper 50 Cent plays Jefferson's handler, Jimmy.  Belgian actor Ronald Guttman, whom I recognized as one of the Russian defectors in THE HUNT FOR RED OCTOBER, is Vince's sponsor in the game, and David Zayas of "Dexter" is a police detective trying to put an end to it. 

Film and TV veteran Ben Gazzara is a welcome presence as Schlondorff, sponsor to his own nerve-frazzled entrant.  In the small role of Vince's handler, Jack, Swedish actor Alexander Skarsgård manages to convey an unspoken sympathy for Vince that makes his character more tolerable.  Michael Shannon (airplane mechanic "Gooz" in PEARL HARBOR) plays the role of coldblooded game ringmaster Henry with particular relish, harshly barking out commands such as "Spin the cylinder!" and "Cock the hammer!"  Gaby Hoffman, who was little "Maisy" in UNCLE BUCK, is all grown up now and plays Vince's sister Clara in a brief role.



Ray Winstone's menacing character becomes the focal point in the game's final stages and gives 13 its most gripping scenes.  After the game, however, the film wanders down a pretty predictable path and finally comes to a stop after failing to find anything interesting to do with itself save for a mild attempt at some kind of irony.  Director Babluani and his co-scripter Gregory Pruss really needed to throw a few more ideas around before settling for this acutely unremarkable ending.

The DVD from Anchor Bay is in 2.40:1 anamorphic widescreen with Dolby 5.1 sound and subtitles in English and Spanish.  There are no extras.

In other hands, 13 might've been a really riveting nailbiter.  As it is, it's a nifty little suspense yarn that doesn't quite make you feel like you've gotten your money's worth when it's over.

13 -- DVD Review by Porfle

CATCH .44 -- DVD Review by Porfle

Originally posted on 12/9/11

 

Ever since PULP FICTION came out, various talky, quirky crime flicks have been described as Tarantino rip-offs.  Or, more generously put, "Tarantino-esque."  Despite all the bad things I've heard about it, I feel generous toward the talky, quirky--and fairly entertaining--crime flick CATCH .44 (2011) so I'll use the latter term.  Besides, people were making movies sorta like this before QT came along, but there just wasn't as convenient a way of describing them.

Not surprisingly, the movie takes the timeline of its not-all-that-complicated story and reshuffles it all over the place just for fun.  Most of the action occurs in an out-of-the-way Louisiana diner at 3:00 a.m., where three girls--Tes (Malik Akerman, WATCHMEN), Dawn (Deborah Ann Woll), and Kara (Nikki Reed, CHAIN LETTER, TWILIGHT)--are on an assignment for local drug kingpin Mel (Bruce Willis) and waiting for something to happen.  When it does, people start getting blown away, including one of the girls. 



We'll keep returning to the diner, with intermittent flashbacks bringing us up to speed a little at a time (a la RESERVOIR DOGS), until everything and everyone comes together at the end.  Meanwhile, we rewind to the dead girl and her two cohorts getting stopped by this really weird highway cop.  Only he isn't really a cop, because we just saw him shoot the real cop in the head during a routine pull-over.  Ronny (Forest Whitaker in another interesting performance) is a scary and enigmatic guy whose intentions are as yet unknown, but we're pretty sure he's going to end up at that diner, too.

Writer-director Aaron Harvey manages to keep things zipping along even when he's imitating Tarantino's chatty dialogue style with long, talky scenes that have their own modest rewards while never quite bagging the elusive Royale With Cheese.  A three-way Mexican standoff inside the diner (also a la RESERVOIR DOGS) after the initial shootout is nicely handled, prolonging the tension with various revelations and teasing us as to what certain characters' motivations are.  Whitaker is especially good here, with Shea Whigham doing a nice turn as a twitchy fry cook with a pump shotgun.  (Lovable oddball Brad Dourif also shows up for a couple of scenes as, of all things, a cop.)

Harvey's directorial style is a pleasing amalgam of lesser you-know-who mixed with a little Robert Rodriguez, making CATCH .44 easy to look at.  It amazed me to discover that Harvey's only other directing credit is the absolutely wretched 2007 slasher flick THE EVIL WOODS, which is without question one of the worst pieces of dreck ever made.  The difference between the two films is stunning--if nothing else, Harvey deserves some kind of an award for "most improved filmmaker."



Lurking in the background, getting talked about a lot, and popping into view for a few key scenes is Bruce Willis' "Mel" character.  The PULP FICTION co-star lends his formidable presence to the film without really breaking a sweat, but by now just being Bruce Willis is enough to elevate a small film such as this to another level.  We see him being a rich, cool drug lord manipulating his unsuspecting employees (such as Tes, Dawn, and Kara) like pawns, and finally emerging for a long, talky final scene with Whitaker that manages a faint hint of the Bill and Beatrix exchange at the end of KILL BILL VOL. 2.  Barely a whiff of that Royale With Cheese, though. 

The DVD from Anchor Bay is in 2.40:1 anamorphic widescreen with Dolby 5.1 sound.  Subtitles are in English and Spanish.  A long, talky commentary track with Harvey and editor Richard Byard is the sole extra.

CATCH .44 doles out tantalizing scraps of story to us until the pieces fall into place, and once that's done, the final scene plays out in a way that resolves all the pent-up suspense in rather predictable ways.  There's no ironic twist or "gotcha" to fully justify so much story fiddling, and we realize that it was all done just to tell a very simple tale in a more interesting way.  Which is okay, since it does.  

CATCH .44 -- DVD Review by Porfle