"I Spit On Your Grave" is a movie where a woman is raped in the first half, then she takes revenge out on the rapists in the second half, and as a result of all of that, somehow makes writer and director Meir Zarchi some sort of legendary genius. The man has given one interview and to my stunning surprise, he did an audio commentary on the "I Spit On Your Grave" DVD. What was his intention with this film? Did it mean something? Was it a metaphor for...I don't know...something? Anything? How are these questions asked for this simple of the film to the untrained eye? It may have to do with the fact that the questions being asked are, well, pretty good questions.

Gasper Noe's "Irreversible" was recently shown at a college campus in my hometown. A friend of mine made the joke that it should be shown on a double bill with "I Spit On Your Grave." Another friend of mine was harsh at putting the other person down, claiming that "no, that can't be done. 'I Spit On Your Grave' is nothing but exploitation." I do feel that "I Spit On Your Grave" and "Irreversible" couldn't be farther apart. One is disturbing, the other isn't, but...I do feel that both of those films are equally open to interpretation, and while I feel that Noe's film is ions better than Zarchi's, I think that the debate of Zarchi's film is so much better.

When I first saw "I Spit On Your Grave," I kind of just dismissed it as another piece of exploitation, albeit a very entertaining and rather brutal one. Part of my reason for seeing it in the first place were all the "no star" reviews and Roger Ebert calling it the worst film he had ever seen. My curiosity meter spills boiling hot magma all over innocent children whenever a movie gets that kind of bad publicity. What was weird though is that it's a movie that isn't easily forgotten, simply because of its brutality, and that goes for whoever loves it and whoever hates it. I often saw the film again, just with groups of friends, but when the Millennium Edition DVD came out, it was the first time since my original viewing that I had actually watched "I Spit On Your Grave" by myself, and with a complete and opened mind. I was all grown up, matured, and not the 12 year old I used to be, who saw the box cover, smirked, nodded, and said "notorioussss."

I think that this movie is quite possibly the ultimate battle of the sexes film. It succeeds at that a lot more than it succeeds at just a feminist revenge picture, where my favorite of that category is still "Ms. 45." Seriously, though, think about it. You've got the classy woman from the big city. She goes down to bumpkinville to write a novel, completely stripped of most technology, social life, and the big modern inner city. One of the first thing she does in the country is fully strip and swim in a giant open lake. I don't think she does that just for some exploitive nudity kick, and I'll tell you why. She's in Biblical times, she's in the middle of the Garden of Eden, my friends. If this were any other exploitation film, the camera would have zoomed in right on her breasts, and even taken the time to get that under water money shot. You know, for plot purposes, of course. This movie doesn't do that. What Zarchi does is pan so far away that you can't even tell that she's nude anymore. He's all the way across the damn lake. This isn't just breats on screen, it's beautiful scenery reminiscent of the beginning of time, when someone could go swimming nude in the lake without a care in the world, and it doesn't make a damn bit of difference. That's why the camera backs away. Because it doesn't make a damn bit of difference. If Zarchi wanted to make a plain and simple exploitation film, he probably would have made more than 2 films, and the other wouldn't have been the truly forgettable and awful "Don't Mess With My Sister." Zarchi knew what he was doing when he made "I Spit On Your Grave," and all we can do is guess.

Now look at the male characters in this film. There's Matthew, who is mentally retarded and talks a little bit like Woody Allen, if Woody Allen rode the short bus. He has really no trace of an education, it's amazing that he actually has a job, and the only people he latches onto seem to really be the only male species who hang around in that country town. Andy and Stanley do nothing all day except sit around, shirtless, throwing knives into the ground, and maybe a little game of horseshoe in between. And the leader of this whole group is Johnny, the suave greaseball who doesn't really do anything except tell the others what to do because one gets the feeling he can't do the dirty work at all, let alone by himself. He's the leader of this male tribe, a team so dumb that if you put all their heads together, they could probably be President of the United States.

Jennifer, the woman, is lying around in her boat one day, dressed in a two piece bikini, and like a bunch of tomcats chasing a feline in my back yard, they stalk this girl and drag her out into the middle of the woods, and rape her, simply put. It's a brutal scene, and it is incredibly hard to watch at times, but I always had the feeling that this movie could have been about cavemen and it would have turned out exactly the same. At least then the dialogue would have been a little bit better. Turns out, the reason they have dragged her into the woods is so Matthew can lose his cherry. He doesn't want to lose it like that, but that doesn't seem to bother the other guys any. The beat the living hell out Jennifer, Johnny rapes her, then she gets up and walks away. She stumbles throughout the woods, hears the sound of a harmonica in the distance, follows it (which is very very well shot by Zarchi by the way), and then is donkey punched over a giant rock where Andy rapes her (I don't know, it could be Stanley, I had to look it up online to remember their names in the first place). She gets up, walks away again, makes it back to her cabin where she is completely covered in mud and blood. Just as she's about to phone the police, the phone is kicked out of her hands. I must admit, I jumped when that happened. The rape scene isn't quite over yet. Matthew succumbs to peer pressure and tries like hell to have sex with her, but he can't (even though the camera angle that looks him right in face is unintentionally awkward and hilarious, and completely out of place). So Stanley beats her some more, takes a bottle and...if you watch the uncut version, you'll find out. The men have decided that they've had enough, so they leave. But not until they try to con Matthew into killing her, and why they left it up to the nervous guy, I have no idea. Probably so he would keep her alive, and there would be a 2nd half of the movie.

And there you have probably the longest rape scene put on film. It runs about 18 minutes I think. It is an incredibly brutal 18 minutes. It's not as disturbing as the 8 minutes in "Irreversible," but be just as careful with who you show this movie to. The men got away with all of that not because they are smart or crafty, but it's because of their physical ability to push someone around when the four of them are together.

The rest of the movie is Jennifer's turn to use her intelligence, her wits, her brilliant sense of mind manipulation to give these men exactly what they deserve. She has her revenge in the greatest way possible. She gets them all alone, seduces them, uses her beauty to show just how much men are stupid and vile pigs when it comes to being talked to by a beautiful woman. They have just brutally attacked her and left her for dead, but when she comes back, looking flirtatious and stunning and beautiful, do they stop to think "oh my god, she's gonna kill us!" No, they are being men. They're thinking "wow, I'm going to get laid, we are the dominant species." Yeah right. There is a reason why the original title for this movie is "Day of the Woman." It's a title they should have kept, it perfectly fits this film. It's like I said before. This is the ultimate battle of the sexes film. Man and woman stripped down to nothing in the middle of the woods, using what they have to tear the other one apart, and only one will come out as the victor in the end. It's the one that uses their mind, not their strength.

Now that is what I think is the underlining truth of "I Spit On Your Grave." But aside from that, it's far from being a perfect film, but it has some other decent qualities to it as well. I love the complete lack of a musical score in this movie. It gives the film even more of a "stranded away from the modern world" feel to it. It's also what makes the violence in the film all the more unsettling. For instance in the rape scene, a musical score would have kept that fact in your head that "it's only a movie," but without music it is way too realistic. The same technique was used in "Irreversible" as well, at least for the rape scene.

What also surprised me as well were some of the performances in the film. Camille Keaton is just plain cool in this film. She is a complete badass. She is someone who knows that she is going to rip these men apart, hanging them up by treas, tearing their nuts off, axing the bastards, but at the same time...she's gotta go to church to apologize for it in advance. When the hell do you see that in a movie like this? Her revenge has got to be done, but she's gotta make sure her afterlife knows that as well. I just love the look that she gives Johnny when he approaches her car after the rape scene. He plays off like he doesn't recognize her, but she knows he does. She doesn't say a word to him. She gives him a little smirk, he gives her a filthy comment, and she nudges that she wants him to get into the car...without saying a damn thing. She's using just her looks to be a complete and utter badass in this scene. And when he pleads to her that he was only doing what any other man would have done, causing her to drop the gun and fall into his arms, you think "jesus, does she believe that?" In the next scene we find out otherwise, but Keaton is so damn good at the male manipulation that, wow, I actually believed her act!

Eron Tabor is excellent as Johnny, and I find it strikingly weird that he has not been in another film since. He was completely believable as this brute who thinks that he is god's gift to women, and in the scene in the diner, with the three other men, you really see the paranoia in his eyes when he thinks that Jennifer might still be alive. Tabor's work here is excellent. I wonder where he has been hiding all of these years. The other three actors just kind of go through the motions. Well, except for Richard Pace as Matthew. He gives a nice little Woody Allen impersonation, generating quite a few laughs. It's about as appropriate in this film as the bumbling cops in "Last House on the Left" were appropriate, but still, he's an interesting, ill conceived comic relief that kinda works. His character makes you question whether or not vengeance should have been taken on him. Effectively, Matthew did save her life, and he couldn't really go through with the rape, and absolutely hated being there. He has the mind of a 10 year old. But he was in on it. He was there. What would you do if you were Jennifer?

There's one thing about this film that always got to me. It's something that I wish could be corrected because it bugs the living hell out of me. There's a scene where a man is dying in Jennifer's bathroom. She locks him in there, goes downstairs, puts on a beautiful operatic record, and just sits in a rocking chair and listens to it. She knows right there that she has won. She doesn't really smile, she just looks...cool and satisfied. Only that isn't the end of the film. There are two more deaths in the movie. In the end she rides off down the river in a motor boat. That is all wrong for this film. The deaths are completely out of order. If the deaths were switched, and it would have ended with her listening to that record as a man dies, it would have been one of the most appropriate and beautiful endings to a revenge exploitation film that I've ever seen. It is an utter miscalculation that that is not the real ending to this film, because the actual ending is so out of nowhere and really uneventful.

I'm glad I watched this movie again with an open mind. There's a lot to this film that really does merit some natural discussion. Some people feel that it "is what it is," while other say that there is something below the rotten and savage surface that Ebert calls "the worst film ever made." My friend was right in calling this an exploitation film, but what he doesn't realize is that every genre of film out there can somehow rise above what they naturally are and cause us to have conversations like the one's I've had, and reviews like this one. Still, with my thoughts and with my complaints, there is that part of me that is still the giddy 12 year old who truly appreciates the last line in the movie, which is spoken by Jennifer: "Suck it B**ch!"

Recommended: Yes