Pajiba

I'm glad there are some men out there like you Dustin. Sometimes it's obvious that your rage is a little trumped up just to make posts more interesting but you always come across as genuinely sickened by misogyny. It's rare for someone to have such passion in their convictions. This movie sounds like garbage.

What actually makes it worse is that it was originally titled Day Of The Woman.

I cannot begin to discuss how completely twisted and fucked up that is. It makes me want to vomit.

I read similar remarks last year regarding this movie, so naturally I had to see. If you're at all curious about it, like I was, do yourself a favor and DON'T. Just don't. Dustin was actually going easy on the people responsible for this piece of shit. This is a movie you wish you could unwatch, or just have the memory of it erased Eternal Sunshine-style.

Awful fucking movie. AWFUL. I watched it because a work friend recommended it and spent the entire film revolted. I'm not squeamish. I don't hate every "torture porn," some I just find funny. And it takes a lot for a movie to horrify me. But I think this is in no fucking way a revenge movie. She gets raped and beaten for over an hour, and then lures them to their deaths using her sexuality. PLEASE. It's an excuse to watch a woman get tormented, the flimsy revenge plot doesn't justify it. I didn't see the woman as strong. I just saw her as damaged. Hate hate hate.

I've never seen the movie, but I once read a little bit about its background, and because I think it's very relevant to your stated opinions, Dustin, I'm going to paste some Wikipedia here:

"Zarchi said that he was inspired to make the movie after helping a young woman who had been raped in New York...they witnessed a young woman crawling out of the bushes bloodied and naked...They decided to take her to the police first, which they soon afterwards discovered was a mistake—the officer...delayed taking her to the hospital and instead insisted that she answer questions about her assailants, even though her jaw had been broken, and she could hardly talk...Zarchi denied that his movie was exploitative, and that the violent nature of the movie was necessary to tell the story."

Essentially, Zarchi was a witness to the aftermath of a real rape, and his film was his attempt to relate the horror and trauma of rape in an unflinching way.

As I said, I've never seen it. Judging from the responses of most of the folks who have, I'd say Zarchi failed in his attempt...but going by his explanation, it seems unfair to accuse him of exploitation.

DeistBrawler, do me a favor, would you? Don't presume to speak for women, particularly when it comes to things like rape. I Spit On Your Grave is a vile, exploitative movie that presents no useful or interesting or intelligent points. It's an hour of awful, awful rape and beatings, followed by 30 minutes of revenge (which, as Julie pointed out, is done through using her sexuality). It's easy to say that it's about what a terrible place the world is, and we should deal with it. You think people didn't already know that? Yes, movies can be used to demonstrate that there are terrible things in the world, but there's no art to the movie. There's no lesson or even really a moral to it. What's the lesson? Don't rape us? You think people need to be fucking taught that?

These types of movies make you watch and realize that the world is terrible and horrifying and that people are the scariest thing in it. Thus, why it makes a good horror film.

No. A good horror film is well-directed and scary and interesting. THAT'S what makes a good horror film.

Skewicide. I pointed that out before Julie did. "In many ways using the exact same feminine qualities that the men attacked her for."

No. A good horror film is well-directed and scary and interesting. THAT'S what makes a good horror film.

That's your opinion right? Like I stated my opinion? Because what is scary and interesting to you might not be scary and interesting to another person. For example, The Shining, The Exorcist, Poltergeist never scared me once. The Birds was cool but Psycho was boring.

do me a favor, would you? Don't presume to speak for women, particularly when it comes to things like rape.

I'm sorry if I made a generalization. Especially one that I think would be grounded. Considering I said "Particularly for women. Women can understand the horrible things that go on in a person after they are raped. They can understand that need for revenge." I guess I'm wrong about that. I guess I'm wrong for assuming that women could sympathize.

What I see is that I stated a different opinion from everyone else. I tried to do so in a somewhat intelligent manner. My bad.

DeistBrawler. "What I see is that I stated a different opinion from everyone else. I tried to do so in a somewhat intelligent manner. My bad."

You, Sir, are the Black Belt passive-aggressive. Why you think that being passive-aggressive is a valid way to argue is a mystery to me.

I'm sorry I keep arguing but I'm not understanding.
don't make such insensitive and simplistic remarks about women.
How? How is what I said either?

In film they show rape. This accomplishes two things. One, they assume women would understand because they believe no woman would want to be raped/they could put themselves in the woman's place. Two, that men would be disgusted and therefore side with the woman in whatever decision she makes.

The same thing can be said for killing a child in a movie. What does this accomplish? Well first and foremost parents will be horrified. How many times do you hear the line, "A parent should never have to outlive their child." The rest of the audience can also put themselves in those shoes only by placing themselves as the child and the parents as their own. Or, I suppose, people who just love children.

Kill a pet. Say, when the dog dies in The Road Warrior. This not only plays itself to animal lovers but to pet owners in general. There goes the loyal pet dying to protect its master. Another good example would be I Am Legend.

If I was being simplistic it is because it is. However, I have not tried to be insensitive in anything I've said. If anything, I've tried to be sensitive. Is it just that I'm putting this in general terms?

I Spit on Your Grave is one of the greatest exploitation films ever made. It is nothing like Captivity in that it actually was shocking and newsworthy when it came out. That and the fact that it's a damn good, disturbing film. Suck it, Rowles. Your opinion is wrong.

Just like you said, DeistBrawler, rape is used to generate a reaction in the audience. Obviously it is a horrific act, but some filmmakers weave that in well (Pulp Fiction, Deliverance), and others don't. Differing opinions, etc etc, but you obviously enjoy a much more brutal movie-watching experience that the rest of us.

P.S. It's timely that in your most recent blog post linked by your name, you talk some "self-absorbed, narcissistic, twat waffles" you know that should be "put on their knees, their hands tied behind their back, a ball gag stuffed in their mouth" and then someone "with like a John Holmes cock, should slap them in the face with said cock. Not really hard, just those nice little pops that can make someone blink." Why? "Because these are the type of people that need to learn a little fucking humiliation...That what you say can hurt other peoples feelings and make you look like a total fucking douche."

When I was a young pre-teen thing, back when you actually had to go to "video stores" and check out "video cassettes" to watch movies, my friends and I would go and comb through the horror section and pick out movies that we could actually get our parents to rent for us - general schlocky 80s horror like "Happy Birthday to Me" or "Children of the Corn" or "Fright Night." Down at the end of the row, a little apart from the rest, sat a lonely copy of "I Spit On Your Grave," every single week. We considered it the Holy Grail of the horror section: how could we see this masterpiece? How could we get someone to rent it for us? Bottom line: Never happened. So I've never seen it, and I think I'm pretty glad.

Shit, this is a complicated matter..

Deist, I think bleujayone said it right, it is not that rape should never be used as a story element, it is the amount of time this movie spends on it. There lies the exploitation. That part is the perversity.

Not that I'm saying you are a perv. Not ment that why.

But to use the Act of a Rape as 2/3 of a movie and use that to create tension, or make people choose their own opinions, is (in my book) a sick way to shock people.

In the back of my mind I can think of Irriversible, also a horrible film, but event there the rape is about 10 minutes. I did not know I could hold my breath in horror for that long.

And, in my opinion, both are simply quite bad movies. This one is not very wel made. Irriversible made some choises I loathe, because it was an okay story told very bad.

Why the Pajibean Women are mad at you, I'm not sure. Maybe because you give them te feeling you speak for them while defending the movie, when they can perfectly speak for themselves.

And I think you said it best yourself, with Dustin, Why would anyone want to remake this???

"Do you hate "Law & Order: Special Victims Unit?"

Holy Christ on a crutch I love SVU without being able to give an actual reason. And I know a bunch of people, like myself, who find themselves locked in to 3-4 episodes back to back at a time.

That show is a sexy, murder-rapey train wreck that always has you come in after the event and quasi-Tarantino the whole damn thing. It's like you stumbled onto the scene of a car crash late, but there's only a few bits of glass and a spot of blood and a bumper. YOU JUST GOTTA KNOW WHAT HAPPENED.

And then it turns out Luke Perry is a sociopath who enjoys raping bad single mommies. Success.

Robert: So the extensive rape and violence made it a good movie... because it was shocking and newsworthy at the time? I mean, the first time Britney Spears flashed her cooch for the cameras was considered "shocking" and "newsworthy" at the time, but that certainly didn't make it good. Just because something is disturbing doesn't make it meaningful beyond itself. I was pretty grossed out by Britney's va-jay hanging out, but it did not give me new perspective on va-jays in general and I certainly never think of Britney's va-jay when looking at other va-jays. The same idea applies here: I Spit on Your Grave was definitely shocking and deeply uncomfortable to watch, but it affected absolutely nothing beyond itself for me. And that is why I don't consider it a good movie. Va-jay.

DeistBrawler,

I'm talking about only people I know who've seen this movie, the ones who've watched it "for laughs" or the movie's "artistic value" and deny it bugged the shit out of them.

I've never seen the movie, but I just don't understand how extending the brutality, and rape, and violence, for an entire movie can ever be justified. We already know rape is horrifying. We don't need to imagine it, or see it, or see it expanded like that. The very idea sickens me. I understand that he wanted to show the horror, but if he really wanted to make a movie about a woman taking revenge, why not focus the majority of the movie on the actual acts of vengeance, instead of on the acts that led to it? I think any audience would empathize in a second, and you wouldn't even have to show any of the rape--a good writer could do it in a few quick sentences said by the main character.

By making the majority of the movie about showing a woman being brutally abused, you're making the movie about the abuse, and like it or not, you're exploiting it so you can make people cringe. And you are NOT doing it so you can get people to empathize with the woman, because that, as I said, could be done in one sentence. You're doing it for the hell of it. The violence is NOT necessary and by expanding it so much, you're looking like a fucking psycho. Which is why I can't stand these sorts of movies.

Someone up there mentioned movies about the Holocaust, and I completely agree with their point. Think of Schindler's List, for example. Spielberg could've easily been incredibly graphic in the concentration camps (even more than he was. And when you think about it, that movie was far more about what was implied and not shown. It could've been so much more), to shock people, to get us to 'empathize'. What he did? He showed an image of the chimney, puffing out black smoke. That's all he needed to horrify us. One image, one word, when used well by a filmmaker, can convey a multitude of horrors.

What I'm trying to say is that a filmmaker could make the point about the horrors of rape without showing us an hour and a half of it. Easily. And he could show the woman taking her revenge for the majority of the movie. Why he didn't just do this is something I just can't understand. There's no justification for the ultra violence that's in that movie.

What I'm trying to say is that a filmmaker could make the point about the horrors of rape without showing us an hour and a half of it. Easily. And he could show the woman taking her revenge for the majority of the movie. Why he didn't just do this is something I just can't understand. There's no justification for the ultra violence that's in that movie.

This.

I don't really have a dog in this fight, as I've never seen the movie and therefore can't make any informed statements about it. I think categorizing all people who enjoyed this movie as somehow broken or disturbed is a bit obtuse, but that's a minor nitpick really. Really I just felt the need to comment 'cause I always do in the horror threads. Kudos to figgy though, for making a fine point and stating it well.

I know that you are a lawyer, and I seriously wish there more people like you in my law school, or the profession.

God, we need to clone you and make non-sexist lawyers.

Psst, smokin, it was me that wrote the bit about Hollow Man, not Dustin.

I wonder if Zarchi would agree to a Pajiba interview?

Ditto, Sara. I do family law and there is so much sexist bullshit in this field. I know some great, totally normal male lawyers, but there are so many sexist dicks with zero excuse for being so.

A good, well-done horror movie doesn't ply the screen with gratuitous violence. It gives the viewer's imagination a starting point with which to run from. The things most people can visualize from a single image or a word are generally far more terrifying than what anyone can portray on a screen. That's why gore for gore's sake isn't scary, it's just gross and present only for shock value. The original Psycho did this to an excellent extent. You never saw the killer in the shower scene, nor the actual stabbing, nor Marion bleeding out. You saw a shadow and blood running down the drain. Most people are able to take that small image and run with it in their imagination.

As for this movie, I'm not going to jump in to this clusterf*ck. I do not agree at all with the opinions of DB, but it's his opinion. It's certainly not mine, nor it appears most of the readership.

DeistBrawler,

The idea of linking the act of rape immediately to a woman contemplating revenge, with her sexuality at that, is, frankly, borderline insulting. At least for me. Maybe for some women this is the case, but don't have the balls to generalize this for ALL women. Some women are terrified, confused, and in shock...for an infinite amount of time after. A dear friend of mine was raped and had the misfortune of running into her rapist later. She broke down in a hallway and became nearly catatonic. Cutting off the dick of your attacker isn't empowerment. Collecting yourself, what pieces are left, working through layers of psychological damage with the aid of kind hearts, putting your life back together, reaching out to other victims is empowerment.

But then if my friend saw this movie she should understand, sympathize even, the power to use your sexuality for revenge, to empower right?...

It's fine if you want to watch this movie, but don't generalize that women can sympathize with some stock character on screen.

The extent of my horror experience is the slasher genre, Nightmare, Friday the 13th, Halloween, etc., anything stronger, or falling into the so called "extreme" horror genre i cannot watch.

I have a friend who's a freak for that stuff though--Cannibal Holocaust, August Underground, Guinea Pig, and old school exploitation flicks like Last House on the Left and I Spit on Your Grave...his explanation for his enjoyment of these movies is similar to Deist's..."real horror" is not Freddy making wisecracks before a kill, but is truly horrifying in the sense that you'll be physically sick for the viewing of it. The 'Scream' movies and all the rest are for pussies...i need to tell him about Pajiba, cuz he'd defend Spit on Your Grave to the death. Personally I'd have no interest in watching anyone, man or woman, get brutalized for an hour onscreen, but I don't begrudge anyone who likes their horror "real."

Gosh, thank you so much for mansplaining, Deistbrawler.

richmac: I think that scene was central to the movie. It was the whole point of the lawsuit that followed. It didn't take an hour of film either.

Still, I remember reading that Jodie Foster broke a bunch of blood vessels in her eyes after crying from filming that scene in The Accused. I don't know who was the actress who played the rape victim from 'spit on your grave', but I don't envy her her part in the movie.

i'm looking forward to the complete tonal watering down of the remake.
i've got nothing better to watch.

as far as the jumping DB's case goes, i won't do it. i don't agree with him sometimes, but hope to think i understand his POV.

yes, women getting raped on-screen isn't pleasant, whether it's a quick flash or a drawn-out scene, the point is that it's horrible.

all this back and forth reminded me of when 4 of us went to see Prince of Tides (don't judge me!) and watching a young boy being raped turned our evening upside-down.
sometimes, that's the way it goes.
i am a survivor of childhood abuse, and gut-punching me like that was the start of several very-theraputic revelations.
this isn't to say that exploitive movies like this have some redeemable healing quality. but it isn't to say that it doesn't either.

Wow, that comment got REALLY LONG before I realized it, and it was totally just supposed to be a quickie throwaway comment about how it's not the presence of rape in a movie that makes people love or hate it, it's how it's handled, so in my opinion it's inaccurate to argue about the content of I Spit on Your Grave being exploitative/worthless or not hinging on the mere existence/awfulness of rape in real life. It does exist and it is awful, but how filmmakers choose to portray it is a very wide road with a shit-ton of side streets.

I'm doing it again. Crap. Sorry. Goodnight, Pajiba!

I love how a movie that presents men as cruel barbarians and women as righteous is called misogynistic. Do you really think that people are rooting for the men in these movies? Do you even know what the male equivalent of misogyny is? I don't, because I've never heard or seen it. You should really grow a pair of balls, Rowles.

PS. I realize that there ARE probably a few people out there who subconsciously root for the men, but there are also a few people out there who want to molest children. That doesn't make everyone a pedophile, and it doesn't mean that anyone who makes a film about child abuse is a pedophile. These things actually happen in real life. Those of us who understand what real life is understand that a film like this isn't actually condoning the actions taken by the characters.

I love how a movie that presents men as cruel barbarians and women as righteous is called misogynistic. Do you really think that people are rooting for the men in these movies?

You must have a pretty simplistic view of human psychology if you think that just because the men are portrayed as evil and the woman as an innocent victim, that means there couldn't possibly be anything exploitative about an hour-long rape scene and it couldn't possibly appeal to some dark side of men's psyche that is thrilled by sexualized violence. Try looking up the concepts of "id" and "superego" sometime, and think about why it is that even though we don't "root for" the killer in most horror movies, we still pay good money to see them do their thing (and not just for the catharsis of seeing them brought to justice, either)

I don't know who was the actress who played the rape victim from 'spit on your grave', but I don't envy her her part in the movie.

Posted by: banana at February 19, 2010 8:34 PM
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I would never, EVER, lay a hand on a woman in anger, I LOVES me some women, so I'm just throwing this out there to be provocative, and because this thread is way more interesting than whatever crap I came up with for a weekend diversion, so I expect it to keep going for several days:

Women can scream all they want about being exploited, but I notice there's never a shortage of them willing to take their clothes off for money. A woman took a paycheck for being brutalized for an hour in "I Spit on Your Grave." Explain that to me.

And let's not limit the discussion to schlock horror or "Girls Gone Wild": A terrific and beautiful actress, Naomi Watts, took a paycheck for being tortured for an hour and murdered in "Funny Games."

I don't agree with DeistBrawler here, but I do have to say: You women need to have some serious talks with your sisters. What the fuck is WRONG with you?

BWeaves, That was a mighty fucking courageous thing to reveal. I used to think Mrs. , had a rape fantasy and I had no idea how to deal with that. That was awhile ago and things are more conventional now, but for awhile I wondered what the fuck I'd gotten myself into.

Rape is pretty much the number one experience I can't stand to watch on screen or read about in my daily newspaper or in a book I'm enjoying. But reading everyone's responses above mine is a thoughtful journey that I don't mind experiencing. People are thinking and describing something that raw into their own paragraph of thought and laying it out for others to see.

Maybe that's a good thing. Banter at will.

Haven't seen "I Spit On Your Grave" or "Funny Games," so I'm not about to get up in arms here. But commadaddy, I'll have a talk with Naomi Watts and the chick who played the victim in this movie, just as soon as you have a heart-to-heart with the men who took a paycheck to play the sadistic rapists and abusers of these women. From the sound of it, you dudes have just as much right to be indignant at how men were portrayed in these movies.

I won't comment on the Girls Gone Wild thing, though. I can't pretend to know what's going through these women's heads if they think listening to that Joe Francis creature is a good idea. *shudder*

I think rape fantasies are complicated because they inherently aren't rape anymore; the person fantasizing is in control and they decide when it starts and stops and how it progresses and what is or isn't done to them. They even control who their "rapist" is and how they act. They may even have planned out the entire thing from start to finish in detail beforehand. Real rape is out of the control of the victim, and that horrible loss of control is the worst psychological weapon involved in the act, losing control over what goes into your body (or what your body goes into, in the case of male rape victims). So while rape fantasies are kinda weird and make everyone uncomfortable, I'd suggest that they are, by their very nature, not rape.

I don't know why so many people have them though. That's for a psychologist with a lot of fancy degrees and in-depth studies to answer, I guess. Powerful white guys apparently tend to like to be humiliated and hurt since it's a change of pace from their daily routine, so maybe the rape fantasy is the kickass strong chick equivalent of surrender of the burden of power or something. Who knows.

Touche, ,! Agreed, this could become an endless and unwinnable debate, when it really comes down to the fact that most people (including pretty much everybody around these parts) know that women in general aren't "whores" and/or pathetic victims, and that men on the whole aren't power-trippin' rapist assholes.

Nat Kittyface, that is a really good point about women having ultimate control in a rape fantasy, as opposed to in an actual rape. Oh, and your name makes me want to snuggle you. Consensually.

I find it interesting that most of these type of films seem to only involve long time frames of women getting raped, beaten and tortured.
My horror film knowledge is pretty limited, but can anyone name a film where the male protagonist is raped and beaten for an hour of screen time?

I find it funny that there's an endless argument over whether or not the movie is exploitative, and what makes it so, when you're all suckers. The troll lies not in the comment section, but the very post itself.

Dustin knows to get overly dramatic over misogyny because he knows it will illicit a reaction and he knows that reaction brings in more hits for the site.

So yeah, in the same way that arguing over the movie has just given the movie way more attention than it deserved, Dustin exploited the movie's well known stigma to cause the comment section to flare.

This is the same as Fox News broadcasting a story about a kidnapping. They don't care about the kid being kidnapped, only the money the advertisers will pay for all the viewers they got.

Well played Dustin. Well played.

I in reality overlooked Hanamaru because I was weary with the Anzu loves Tsuchi trope. Ep9 will bring me back for ep10, but to be honest, I found myself pretty worried by Anzu’s fantasy of being a big-bosomed woman of the house welcoming Tsuchi home to a common bath. I found that to a greater extent upsetting than anything in old anime that regard nudeness or loli-moe memes.

Thanks for writing this, Dustin. I feel less alone because of people like you. As a rape survivor with PTSD, I find it completely appalling that anyone would derive pleasure from this kind of sick, thinly disguised torture porn. I couldn't stop crying when I saw an ad for it, because I knew my online life would be bombarded with inescapable panic triggers for at least as long as it took for the hype to die down. It's nice to know there is someone out there who cares.

Dev was the star singler on Far East Movement's Like a G6 and she now actually has her own singles. Her debut song from her debut album (that doesn't have a name yet) is also featuring producers The Cataracs, who also appeared on Like a G6! The track, titled Bass Down Low, sounds similar to Dev's other works, such as Fireball and Booty Bounce. I wish Dev good luck in her music career!

I would rape his eyeballs with a broken coke bottle.

Are you sure? That seems a bit extreme.

You want to be using a Pepsi bottle, not Coke.

Yes, I agree with the above poster although I suppose you need to put the matter into context of wht is actually being asked for here

Grazie mille! :D

I'm bumping the original up to no.1 on my netflix queue as soon as I'm done writing this. I loved the remake AND I have a vagina. Yup it was about a girl getting raped, yup someone said it was disturbing, yup the effects are corny as fuck. Aren't horror movies supposed to be disturbing? My friend found it at walmart for ten dollars and we all sat and watched it one night, we all liked it. And deadgirl. And the human centipede. And cannibal holocaust. All of which I own. Be sure to let me know next time you guys want to waste your lives bitching about difference in opinions about a FUCKING MOVIE so I can be sure to watch it. Maybe you could try spending less time online whining about a movie which contains rape and actually do something productive like helping with a program that prevents rape IN REAL LIFE. God fucking damn.

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