I Spit On Your Grave: Unrated (Remake)

In 1978 director Meir Zarchi brought the world the original "I Spit On Your Grave a.k.a Day of the Woman", and the world banned it in five countries from even being released. This movie is an expression of the most diseased and perverted darker human natures", wrote Roger Ebert in the Chicago Sun Times. "I walked out of the theater quickly, feeling unclean, ashamed and depressed." When I saw the first trailer for the remake my first thought was "I can't believe they are remaking this movie...and why?"

I Spit On Your Grave has a very straight forward plot, author Jennifer Hills rents a secluded cabin to write her new novel. Shortly after arriving a group of the surrounding towns degenerates inflict brutal torture and rape on her and leave her for dead. Fortunately for us she is not dead and returns to unleash revenge on the men one by one. At the time of its release it raised a great deal of outrage from churches, potential viewers, critics and feminist. I would say the times have changes significantly considering I saw this after a college professor suggested I do so to get inspiration for my senior thesis. It was hard to watch for a few reasons, the brutal nature of the plot of course but also because its an older low budget film so it is slow paced and as a twenty something of the bloody torture horror generation this almost doesnt compare to what we see now. Its the kind of movie you have to think about when you watch it, put yourself in the time period it was made in order to understand why this film is such a big deal.

Friends are still outraged and turned off when I talk about exploitation films because they only see the violence against women aspect but fail to see the female heroin side of the story as well. A huge point of most of these kinds of movies is the female empowerment that results from these horrifying acts. Tell me that at the end of Tarantino's "Death Proof" you did not feel some sort of "YEAH!" for these girls that just kicked the piss out of a guy who previously killed three defenseless women? I Spit On Your Grave and other films like this are doing the same thing but in a more hardcore sort of way. As far as the remake goes, it was a bit more unnerving than the original for me probably because its set in my time and there was a bit more realness that could be applied to it. The rape scenes are very hard to watch and at a certain point I started feeling like maybe this is going a little long, but I think thats what the director wanted, and to say her revenge was satisfying to watch is an understatement. It was pretty awesome, each one tying into what they had inflicted on her. I Spit On Your Grave is not for everyone, especially the faint of heart but worth seeing if you can appreciate exploitation films and want to see an updated but pretty true to the original versions of a classic.

I spit On Your Grave
Released 2010
Directed By Steven R. Monroe

Frozen

Anyone who has been skiing or snowboarding can tell me that when the ski lift stops in midair for a few minutes your heart doesnt jump into your throat and start to beat a bit faster. You look down at the ground and realize just how high up you are and how much it would suck to be stuck there...Frozen takes on those fears. Three friends go skiing for the weekend and after bribing the lift operator to let them take just one last run ultimately get stuck at the top all alone. Someone would notice eventually right? Wrong, they are closed for a holiday weekend and theres a storm moving in.

I think the main hesitation for audiences with this film is the idea that a whole movie taking place on a ski lift would be or get boring. I didnt find that to be the case and was pretty interested the whole way through, there is obviously a lot of dialogue but that allows for character development and gives you an idea of what each character is going to have to overcome within themselves to push through this situation.

Frozen
Released 2010
Directed By Adam Green

"Are we still the good guys?"- The Road

I had been looking forward to The Road for a while mainly for its bleak dark look. I enjoyed it overall but didnt love it, although some scenes really stuck with me as a photographer. I think it was a hard movie to do in the first place because of the following the book has, and also because with a book it is so much easier to put yourself into the characters shoes as well as stir up your nerves with your own imagination.

I cant imagine anyone else playing the lead, Viggo Mortenson was a good choice and the kid who played his son was not bad. Im sure one common complaint with the movie is wanting to know "what happened?", how did the world turn into this grey, bleak place in what seemed like a relatively short amount of time. At the same time, in the long run it doesnt matter whats happened just that theyre supposed to keep going even though it seems pointless and tough try to be the good guys. A lesson for life? I guess so. I think the movie got itself sidetracked with trying to be mainstream and action packed when the main story is about a man trying to raise a good son in a world that has fallen apart. You still get that from the film but not as much as we could have, it feels like hes preparing his son to survive not necessarily to be a good person as they try to emphasize in a lot of ways.

"You almost knocked over your alcohol with your knife"-Zombieland

Zombieland was in one word, AWESOME. It had everything, action, a decent love story, comedy, great cinematography. The reviews had been really good, basically saying that it was a sleeper from this year and I agree, I think people should really give it a chance even if it isnt their "typical type" of movie they would be into.

The story takes place in a post apocalyptic sort of world where the zombie virus is running rampant (a mad cow mutation of some kind) and causing humans to be outnumbered. We dont learn character names, they are only referred to by their city they are traveling to in order to find any surviving friends or family. Columbus is your typical uptight, nerdy, Michael Cera sort of character who is forced to man up to protect himself in his new found violent world. No longer hiding himself from living life by playing video games in the comfort of his dorm, he sets out to find his family in Ohio. He has a list of rules which he follows to keep himself alive; for example Rule #2 The Double Tap, which is genius because I think at some point we have all watched a horror movie where we wonder why the hell did the character not shoot the "villain" more than once to make sure theyre dead?!

Eventually he meets self proclaimed badass Tallahassee who has lost a loved one and merely searching for a new place to call home and kicking zombie ass and taking names along the way. He also teams up with Wichita and her sister Little Rock who are headed to an amusement park in California that is rumored to be zombie free. Along the way they grow closer, get into danger, find joys in the little things left of human life and blow a ton of zombies apart the whole way.

"This is huge, this one night changes everything for me" - The House of the Devil

I finished my work day early on this afternoon and had 4hrs to kill. I had been hearing great stuff about The House of the Devil and decided to go check it out.

It was awesome. It is your classic 80's "C" list sort of horror movie but done way better than films from the actual time period. An Official Tribeca film festival selection of 2009, the movie is shot to look as if it were actually made during the rise of the horror genre, the director ran a huge risk of being campy/cheesy in the worst way possible. But it seems like director Ti West knew exactly what he wanted to do and was able to execute it perfectly, I cant imagine it being shot in any other way or taking place in any other time.

The story revolves around a college sophomore, played by Jocelin Donahue, pressed for cash for a new apartment to escape her messy roommate. She miraculously finds a babysitting job posted on campus with only a few days to come up with her first months rent. To her friends reluctance she heads out to the house only to find out that there is no baby and she will in fact be watching and elderly woman. At this point she is offered more money than she needs and knows that she has to take this job despite being misled. Sit around, watch tv, order pizza and wait till midnight. Simple enough. After tons of suspense, bumps in the night start to get to her and things start to really get rolling.

The suspense in the film is well played, there was only a minute or two where I started to get a little antsy but overall I was on edge waiting to jump and I definitely did. I have been a fan of grindhouse/exploitation/C List movies for the last few years and it was awesome seeing a new one that was done right.