I Spit on Your Grave (2010 film)
Encyclopedia
I Spit on Your Grave is a 2010 American rape and revenge
horror film
, and a remake
of the controversial 1978 cult film of the same name
. It was directed by Steven R. Monroe, and stars Sarah Butler
, Chad Lindberg
, Daniel Franzese
, Rodney Eastman
, Jeff Branson
, and Andrew Howard
.
) driving to a shop to pick up the keys to a cabin she has rented for a few months and to get directions. She is going to the cabin in the woods down south to write her second novel. On her way to the cabin, she gets lost and pulls into a gas station where she encounters a group of grease heads. She accidentally spills some fluid on the leader of the group, Johnny (Jeff Branson
), and hits the panic button on her car, scaring him and causing him to spill gasoline all over himself. The other guys make fun of him for getting scared. Jennifer drives off into the gravelly road to the cabin. A few days pass and something strange happens. One night, she begins to hear noises every so often that make her uneasy. Her first visitor is Matthew (Chad Lindberg
), who is sent to the cabin to fix the broken toilet. His reward is a kiss from Jennifer, and the shy Matthew runs out of the cabin. He later meets up with the group and tells them "she likes me", and the guys begin to talk about Jennifer whom they refer to as "the girl from the city" or "the girl".
Nightfall comes and Jennifer begins to hear noises around the house. She checks and finds nothing; her fears are realized when the gang from the gas station come to the cabin to get Matthew to lose his virginity. After they have assaulted her, making her perform fellatio
on bottles and a gun, she is able to escape the cabin and runs off into the woods. She bumps into Storch (Andrew Howard
), the sheriff, and Earl (Tracey Walter
), the person from whom she rented the cabin. Storch brings Jennifer back to the cabin acting like he is going to help her. He finds wine and a marijuana joint and begins to interrogate her. After an improper pat down, the boys come through the door and she realizes that they are in cahoots. They hold her down, so Matthew can rape her. After he is done, she just gets up and walks out naked outside of the cabin and into the woods. She is confronted by the gang again. Andy holds her head underwater and Storch anally
rapes her and they each have a turn raping her, Stanley recording the entire event on his video camera the whole time. After all five men are done with her, she gets up again and walks out of the woods and onto a bridge. Just when Storch is going to shoot her, Jennifer jumps into the river. The gang searches for her body but have no luck finding her and begin to get rid of any evidence left behind.
A month passes before Jennifer returns. She has survived in the woods for a month eating, as she explains later, bugs, rodents, garbage, and other things and has been staying in a run-down house in the woods in order to stay out of sight from the gang. Jennifer has also driven completely insane by her ordeal, and uses her creativity as a writer to mastermind her vengeance, carefully crafting her plans by stalking her rapists first to learn details of their lives before she makes her moves. She starts playing games with the group by stealing Stanley's camcorder and send the tape to Storch's wife after Jennifer made a copy, and then sets Matthew up of the theft to make the gang believes that he has lost it. To keep Earl quiet about Jennifer's visit, Storch kills him while hunting. Jennifer's first victim is Matthew, the slower of the bunch who has a crush on her and is the only one that feels remorse. Jennifer, however, does not care and drags him away with a noose around his neck. Her second and third victims are the group's two lackeys. Stanley (Daniel Franzese
), the fat one, steps in a bear trap, and Andy (Rodney Eastman
) gets knocked out with a baseball bat. Jennifer uses fish hooks to keep Stanley's eyes open while she pulls out a fish and guts it, and spreads the guts in his eyes and face. This is all being recorded on his camera; the same camera he used to film her being raped. The fish guts attracts crows, who begin to peck on his face and eventually his eyeballs. Andy is tied up lying on a few boards over a bath tub being filled with water. Jennifer throws in some lye and removes one of the boards, forcing him to use his strength to stay out of the base. Eventually his face hits the base-filled bath tub. Each time he pulls himself up we see his base-burned face, with his tongue dissolved. Johnny is later strung up naked with a bridle in his mouth. Jennifer begins to pull out his teeth one by one with pliers, then takes out his own pistol and forces him to perform fellatio on it, the same as he did to her, and then finally she pulls out hedge clippers and cuts off his penis
and sticks it in his mouth, leaving him to bleed to death.
After Jennifer is done with Johnny, she goes to visit the sheriff's family. Pretending to be his daughter's (Saxon Sharbino) school teacher, she talks to him on the phone. Storch races home to find Jennifer is no longer there. He finds out she has taken his daughter to the playground. Storch races there to find no one, except Jennifer in the back seat of his cop car. After the sheriff wakes up from the blow from the baton, Jennifer begins to rape Storch anally with a shotgun. She has also attached a string to the trigger and the other end has been tied around Matthew's wrist. She walks out of the house with Storch begging for mercy and cursing her out at the same time. Then Matthew wakes up and in a failed attempt by Storch to calm Matthew down, Matthew moves, firing the shotgun, killing both Storch and Matthew. Jennifer is then seen sitting in a tree with a smirk on her face.
began on November 2, 2009, under Steven R. Monroe's direction. The film stars Sarah Butler
, Chad Lindberg
, Daniel Franzese
, Rodney Eastman
, Jeff Branson
, Andrew Howard
, Saxon Sharbino, and Amber Dawn Landrum. It was distributed by CineTel, and produced by the company's president and CEO Paul Hertzberg
. Lisa Hansen, Jeff Klein, Alan Ostroff, Gary Needle, and Meir Zarchi
(director of the original) served as executive producer
s. Location filming took place in Louisiana
. The film was written by Stuart Morse, based on Zarchi's screenplay.
has a planned 2010 worldwide theatrical release. The film was part of the Texas Frightmare Weekend
on May 1, 2010 in the Sheraton Grand Hotel in Irving, Texas
and part of the Film4 Frightfest on 29 August 2010. The Canadian unrated premiere was part of the Fantasia Festival
on 28 July 2010, with the complete cast and Meir Zarchi
the director of the original
. An unrated version was released in limited release
on October 8, 2010 in the United States.
, Canada
, Australia
and the UK
by Anchor Bay Entertainment
. The DVD and Blu-ray
were released in the United States on February 8, 2011. The DVD includes an audio commentary
by director Steven R. Monroe and producer Lisa Hansen
, 11 deleted scene
s, and teasers and trailers
.
The DVD was banned in New Zealand
just before its April release.
. Roger Ebert
gave the film zero stars (the same he gave the original) and described it as the "despicable remake of the despicable 1978 film". He claimed that it added "a phony sense of moral equivalency", stating "If I rape you, I have committed a crime. If you kill me, you have committed another one. The ideal outcome would be two people unharmed in the first place". With that, he concluded that the first half of the film was the truly offensive part, as the segment with the male characters tormenting and finally raping Jennifer was a more plausible scenario than the ways in which Jennifer got revenge against them. Ebert would later add "this (version) is more offensive, because it lingers lovingly and at greater length on realistic verbal, psychological and physical violence against the woman, and then reduces her "revenge" to cartoonish horror-flick impossibilities".
Mick LaSalle of the San Francisco Chronicle
wrote "In addition to all the obvious things that are disgusting about this movie, I Spit on Your Grave is trying to get us to hate each other. Hate it instead. It makes more sense and the hatred is much more deserved." Critic Andrew O'Hehir also denounced the notion that the film has a message, writing that it "Just piles imaginary atrocities on top of real ones, and then halfheartedly claims that it means something. Well, it doesn't".
Some support for the film in mainstream press came from The New York Times
, which wrote, "Female-empowerment fantasy or just plain prurience, “Grave” is extremely efficient grindhouse
." V.A. Musetto, from The New York Post, also offered some support for the film, stating people should "see it if you can handle it".
Like the original, the film did find limited cult support. Fangoria Magazine
, writes that I Spit on Your Grave "...is just as raw and upsetting in its onscreen brutality as the original. Perhaps more so, since the acting is significantly better this time around", and Paul McCannibal, from DreadCentral.com, agrees that the remake is "well executed, punishing, and viciously rewarding".
Rape and revenge films
Rape and revenge films are a subgenre of exploitation film that was particularly popular in the 1970s. Rape/revenge movies generally follow the same three act structure:...
horror film
Horror film
Horror films seek to elicit a negative emotional reaction from viewers by playing on the audience's most primal fears. They often feature scenes that startle the viewer through the means of macabre and the supernatural, thus frequently overlapping with the fantasy and science fiction genres...
, and a remake
Remake
A remake is a piece of media based primarily on an earlier work of the same medium.-Film:The term "remake" is generally used in reference to a movie which uses an earlier movie as the main source material, rather than in reference to a second, later movie based on the same source...
of the controversial 1978 cult film of the same name
I Spit On Your Grave
Day of the Woman is a 1978 controversial rape revenge film. The film received a limited release, with a wider release in 1980. Prominent film critics condemned the film for its graphic violence and lengthy depictions of gang rape, and the motion picture remains controversial to this day...
. It was directed by Steven R. Monroe, and stars Sarah Butler
Sarah Butler
Sarah Butler is an American actress. She stars in the 2010 film I Spit on Your Grave, a remake of the controversial 1978 film of the same title.-Biography:...
, Chad Lindberg
Chad Lindberg
Chad Tyler Lindberg is an American actor. He is best known for his film role as Jesse in The Fast and the Furious and for a rape scene in the 2010 remake I Spit On Your Grave.-Life and career:...
, Daniel Franzese
Daniel Franzese
Daniel Franzese is an American actor. He has worked in film, TV and theater.Franzese was born in Bensonhurst, Brooklyn, New York, the son of Denise and Ralph "R. J." Franzese, a lounge singer...
, Rodney Eastman
Rodney Eastman
Rodney Eastman is a Canadian actor. He is also a musician in a band called "King Straggler" with fellow actors John Hawkes and Brent Gore. The band resides in Los Angeles, California.-Life and career:...
, Jeff Branson
Jeff Branson
Jeffrey Dale "Jeff" Branson is an American actor.-Life and career:Branson was born in St.Louis and originated the role of Jonathan Lavery on the ABC soap opera All My Children on June 15, 2004. Although he was off the air from mid-April until August 2005 while his character was believed dead in an...
, and Andrew Howard
Andrew Howard
-Stage acting:On stage roles included Alex DeLarge in A Clockwork Orange, Peer Gyntin Peer Gynt, Orestes in Electra at theatres, including The Royal National Theatre and TheDonmar Warehouse .-Film acting:...
.
Plot
The film opens with young novelist Jennifer Hills (Sarah ButlerSarah Butler
Sarah Butler is an American actress. She stars in the 2010 film I Spit on Your Grave, a remake of the controversial 1978 film of the same title.-Biography:...
) driving to a shop to pick up the keys to a cabin she has rented for a few months and to get directions. She is going to the cabin in the woods down south to write her second novel. On her way to the cabin, she gets lost and pulls into a gas station where she encounters a group of grease heads. She accidentally spills some fluid on the leader of the group, Johnny (Jeff Branson
Jeff Branson
Jeffrey Dale "Jeff" Branson is an American actor.-Life and career:Branson was born in St.Louis and originated the role of Jonathan Lavery on the ABC soap opera All My Children on June 15, 2004. Although he was off the air from mid-April until August 2005 while his character was believed dead in an...
), and hits the panic button on her car, scaring him and causing him to spill gasoline all over himself. The other guys make fun of him for getting scared. Jennifer drives off into the gravelly road to the cabin. A few days pass and something strange happens. One night, she begins to hear noises every so often that make her uneasy. Her first visitor is Matthew (Chad Lindberg
Chad Lindberg
Chad Tyler Lindberg is an American actor. He is best known for his film role as Jesse in The Fast and the Furious and for a rape scene in the 2010 remake I Spit On Your Grave.-Life and career:...
), who is sent to the cabin to fix the broken toilet. His reward is a kiss from Jennifer, and the shy Matthew runs out of the cabin. He later meets up with the group and tells them "she likes me", and the guys begin to talk about Jennifer whom they refer to as "the girl from the city" or "the girl".
Nightfall comes and Jennifer begins to hear noises around the house. She checks and finds nothing; her fears are realized when the gang from the gas station come to the cabin to get Matthew to lose his virginity. After they have assaulted her, making her perform fellatio
Fellatio
Fellatio is an act of oral stimulation of a male's penis by a sexual partner. It involves the stimulation of the penis by the use of the mouth, tongue, or throat. The person who performs fellatio can be referred to as the giving partner, and the other person is the receiving partner...
on bottles and a gun, she is able to escape the cabin and runs off into the woods. She bumps into Storch (Andrew Howard
Andrew Howard
-Stage acting:On stage roles included Alex DeLarge in A Clockwork Orange, Peer Gyntin Peer Gynt, Orestes in Electra at theatres, including The Royal National Theatre and TheDonmar Warehouse .-Film acting:...
), the sheriff, and Earl (Tracey Walter
Tracey Walter
Tracey Walter is an American character actor. He has appeared in over 100 films and television shows.-Life and career:Walter was born in Jersey City, New Jersey, the son of a truck driver....
), the person from whom she rented the cabin. Storch brings Jennifer back to the cabin acting like he is going to help her. He finds wine and a marijuana joint and begins to interrogate her. After an improper pat down, the boys come through the door and she realizes that they are in cahoots. They hold her down, so Matthew can rape her. After he is done, she just gets up and walks out naked outside of the cabin and into the woods. She is confronted by the gang again. Andy holds her head underwater and Storch anally
Anal sex
Anal sex is the sex act in which the penis is inserted into the anus of a sexual partner. The term can also include other sexual acts involving the anus, including pegging, anilingus , fingering, and object insertion.Common misconception describes anal sex as practiced almost exclusively by gay men...
rapes her and they each have a turn raping her, Stanley recording the entire event on his video camera the whole time. After all five men are done with her, she gets up again and walks out of the woods and onto a bridge. Just when Storch is going to shoot her, Jennifer jumps into the river. The gang searches for her body but have no luck finding her and begin to get rid of any evidence left behind.
A month passes before Jennifer returns. She has survived in the woods for a month eating, as she explains later, bugs, rodents, garbage, and other things and has been staying in a run-down house in the woods in order to stay out of sight from the gang. Jennifer has also driven completely insane by her ordeal, and uses her creativity as a writer to mastermind her vengeance, carefully crafting her plans by stalking her rapists first to learn details of their lives before she makes her moves. She starts playing games with the group by stealing Stanley's camcorder and send the tape to Storch's wife after Jennifer made a copy, and then sets Matthew up of the theft to make the gang believes that he has lost it. To keep Earl quiet about Jennifer's visit, Storch kills him while hunting. Jennifer's first victim is Matthew, the slower of the bunch who has a crush on her and is the only one that feels remorse. Jennifer, however, does not care and drags him away with a noose around his neck. Her second and third victims are the group's two lackeys. Stanley (Daniel Franzese
Daniel Franzese
Daniel Franzese is an American actor. He has worked in film, TV and theater.Franzese was born in Bensonhurst, Brooklyn, New York, the son of Denise and Ralph "R. J." Franzese, a lounge singer...
), the fat one, steps in a bear trap, and Andy (Rodney Eastman
Rodney Eastman
Rodney Eastman is a Canadian actor. He is also a musician in a band called "King Straggler" with fellow actors John Hawkes and Brent Gore. The band resides in Los Angeles, California.-Life and career:...
) gets knocked out with a baseball bat. Jennifer uses fish hooks to keep Stanley's eyes open while she pulls out a fish and guts it, and spreads the guts in his eyes and face. This is all being recorded on his camera; the same camera he used to film her being raped. The fish guts attracts crows, who begin to peck on his face and eventually his eyeballs. Andy is tied up lying on a few boards over a bath tub being filled with water. Jennifer throws in some lye and removes one of the boards, forcing him to use his strength to stay out of the base. Eventually his face hits the base-filled bath tub. Each time he pulls himself up we see his base-burned face, with his tongue dissolved. Johnny is later strung up naked with a bridle in his mouth. Jennifer begins to pull out his teeth one by one with pliers, then takes out his own pistol and forces him to perform fellatio on it, the same as he did to her, and then finally she pulls out hedge clippers and cuts off his penis
Penectomy
Penectomy is the surgical removal of the penis for medical or personal reasons.- Medical Reasons for Penectomy :Cancer, for example, sometimes necessitates removal of part or of the penis. The amount of the penis removed depends on the severity of the cancer. Some men have only the tip of their...
and sticks it in his mouth, leaving him to bleed to death.
After Jennifer is done with Johnny, she goes to visit the sheriff's family. Pretending to be his daughter's (Saxon Sharbino) school teacher, she talks to him on the phone. Storch races home to find Jennifer is no longer there. He finds out she has taken his daughter to the playground. Storch races there to find no one, except Jennifer in the back seat of his cop car. After the sheriff wakes up from the blow from the baton, Jennifer begins to rape Storch anally with a shotgun. She has also attached a string to the trigger and the other end has been tied around Matthew's wrist. She walks out of the house with Storch begging for mercy and cursing her out at the same time. Then Matthew wakes up and in a failed attempt by Storch to calm Matthew down, Matthew moves, firing the shotgun, killing both Storch and Matthew. Jennifer is then seen sitting in a tree with a smirk on her face.
Cast
- Sarah ButlerSarah ButlerSarah Butler is an American actress. She stars in the 2010 film I Spit on Your Grave, a remake of the controversial 1978 film of the same title.-Biography:...
as Jennifer Hills - Chad LindbergChad LindbergChad Tyler Lindberg is an American actor. He is best known for his film role as Jesse in The Fast and the Furious and for a rape scene in the 2010 remake I Spit On Your Grave.-Life and career:...
as Matthew - Daniel FranzeseDaniel FranzeseDaniel Franzese is an American actor. He has worked in film, TV and theater.Franzese was born in Bensonhurst, Brooklyn, New York, the son of Denise and Ralph "R. J." Franzese, a lounge singer...
as Stanley - Rodney EastmanRodney EastmanRodney Eastman is a Canadian actor. He is also a musician in a band called "King Straggler" with fellow actors John Hawkes and Brent Gore. The band resides in Los Angeles, California.-Life and career:...
as Andy - Jeff BransonJeff BransonJeffrey Dale "Jeff" Branson is an American actor.-Life and career:Branson was born in St.Louis and originated the role of Jonathan Lavery on the ABC soap opera All My Children on June 15, 2004. Although he was off the air from mid-April until August 2005 while his character was believed dead in an...
as John "Johnny" Miller - Andrew HowardAndrew Howard-Stage acting:On stage roles included Alex DeLarge in A Clockwork Orange, Peer Gyntin Peer Gynt, Orestes in Electra at theatres, including The Royal National Theatre and TheDonmar Warehouse .-Film acting:...
as Sheriff Storch - Tracey WalterTracey WalterTracey Walter is an American character actor. He has appeared in over 100 films and television shows.-Life and career:Walter was born in Jersey City, New Jersey, the son of a truck driver....
as Earl - Mollie MilliganMollie MilliganMollie Milligan is an American actress. She is also the co-owner/operator of Boxcar Creative, in Dallas, TX-Different Abilities:In 2007, Mollie Milligan and her business partner, Brian Fabian, began searching for a film making opportunity...
as Mrs. Storch - Saxon Sharbino as Chastity Storch
- Amber Dawn Landrum as Girl at Gas Station
Production
Principal photographyPrincipal photography
thumb|300px|Film production on location in [[Newark, New Jersey]].Principal photography is the phase of film production in which the movie is filmed, with actors on set and cameras rolling, as distinct from pre-production and post-production....
began on November 2, 2009, under Steven R. Monroe's direction. The film stars Sarah Butler
Sarah Butler
Sarah Butler is an American actress. She stars in the 2010 film I Spit on Your Grave, a remake of the controversial 1978 film of the same title.-Biography:...
, Chad Lindberg
Chad Lindberg
Chad Tyler Lindberg is an American actor. He is best known for his film role as Jesse in The Fast and the Furious and for a rape scene in the 2010 remake I Spit On Your Grave.-Life and career:...
, Daniel Franzese
Daniel Franzese
Daniel Franzese is an American actor. He has worked in film, TV and theater.Franzese was born in Bensonhurst, Brooklyn, New York, the son of Denise and Ralph "R. J." Franzese, a lounge singer...
, Rodney Eastman
Rodney Eastman
Rodney Eastman is a Canadian actor. He is also a musician in a band called "King Straggler" with fellow actors John Hawkes and Brent Gore. The band resides in Los Angeles, California.-Life and career:...
, Jeff Branson
Jeff Branson
Jeffrey Dale "Jeff" Branson is an American actor.-Life and career:Branson was born in St.Louis and originated the role of Jonathan Lavery on the ABC soap opera All My Children on June 15, 2004. Although he was off the air from mid-April until August 2005 while his character was believed dead in an...
, Andrew Howard
Andrew Howard
-Stage acting:On stage roles included Alex DeLarge in A Clockwork Orange, Peer Gyntin Peer Gynt, Orestes in Electra at theatres, including The Royal National Theatre and TheDonmar Warehouse .-Film acting:...
, Saxon Sharbino, and Amber Dawn Landrum. It was distributed by CineTel, and produced by the company's president and CEO Paul Hertzberg
Paul Hertzberg
Paul Hertzberg is an American producer, actor, casting, and writer.His genres included thrillers, action, drama, and sci-fi. He and Lisa M. Hansen founded CineTel Films in 1985. Much like his company's co-founder, Lisa M...
. Lisa Hansen, Jeff Klein, Alan Ostroff, Gary Needle, and Meir Zarchi
Meir Zarchi
Meir Zarchi pronounced 'Zarki,' is a film director.He was the director of I Spit On Your Grave aka Day of the Woman , which starred Camille Keaton, to whom he was married. He also directed, produced and wrote Don't Mess with My Sister! .-References:* Art Ettinger, "Day of Meir Zarchi," Ultra...
(director of the original) served as executive producer
Executive producer
An executive producer is a producer who is not involved in any technical aspects of the film making or music process, but who is still responsible for the overall production...
s. Location filming took place in Louisiana
Louisiana
Louisiana is a state located in the southern region of the United States of America. Its capital is Baton Rouge and largest city is New Orleans. Louisiana is the only state in the U.S. with political subdivisions termed parishes, which are local governments equivalent to counties...
. The film was written by Stuart Morse, based on Zarchi's screenplay.
Release
CineTel FilmsCineTel Films
CineTel Films Inc. is an independent film production company and distributor based in West Hollywood, California.-History:Chicago Teleproductions was a forerunner to CineTel Films. Paul Hertzberg founded CineTel Films....
has a planned 2010 worldwide theatrical release. The film was part of the Texas Frightmare Weekend
Texas Frightmare Weekend
Texas Frightmare Weekend is a horror-oriented for-profit media event held occasionally in the Dallas, Texas area. Guests have included actors, directors, and producers from classic and upcoming horror films.-Past events:...
on May 1, 2010 in the Sheraton Grand Hotel in Irving, Texas
Irving, Texas
Irving is a city located in the U.S. state of Texas within Dallas County. According to the 2010 U.S. Census, the city population was 216,290. Irving is within the Dallas–Plano–Irving metropolitan division of the Dallas–Fort Worth–Arlington metropolitan area, designated...
and part of the Film4 Frightfest on 29 August 2010. The Canadian unrated premiere was part of the Fantasia Festival
Fantasia Festival
Fantasia International Film Festival is a genre film festival that has been based mainly in Montreal since its founding in 1996...
on 28 July 2010, with the complete cast and Meir Zarchi
Meir Zarchi
Meir Zarchi pronounced 'Zarki,' is a film director.He was the director of I Spit On Your Grave aka Day of the Woman , which starred Camille Keaton, to whom he was married. He also directed, produced and wrote Don't Mess with My Sister! .-References:* Art Ettinger, "Day of Meir Zarchi," Ultra...
the director of the original
I Spit On Your Grave
Day of the Woman is a 1978 controversial rape revenge film. The film received a limited release, with a wider release in 1980. Prominent film critics condemned the film for its graphic violence and lengthy depictions of gang rape, and the motion picture remains controversial to this day...
. An unrated version was released in limited release
Limited release
Limited release is a term in the American motion picture industry for a motion picture that is playing in a select few theaters across the country ....
on October 8, 2010 in the United States.
Home media
The film is distributed in the United StatesUnited States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
, Canada
Canada
Canada is a North American country consisting of ten provinces and three territories. Located in the northern part of the continent, it extends from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west, and northward into the Arctic Ocean...
, Australia
Australia
Australia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It is the world's sixth-largest country by total area...
and the UK
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...
by Anchor Bay Entertainment
Anchor Bay Entertainment
Anchor Bay Entertainment is a U.S. based home entertainment and production company and is a division of Starz Media, which is a unit of Starz, LLC. It was previously owned by IDT Entertainment until 2006 when IDT was purchased by Starz Media. Anchor Bay markets and sells feature films, series,...
. The DVD and Blu-ray
Blu-ray Disc
Blu-ray Disc is an optical disc storage medium designed to supersede the DVD format. The plastic disc is 120 mm in diameter and 1.2 mm thick, the same size as DVDs and CDs. Blu-ray Discs contain 25 GB per layer, with dual layer discs being the norm for feature-length video discs...
were released in the United States on February 8, 2011. The DVD includes an audio commentary
Audio commentary
On disc-based video formats, an audio commentary is an additional audio track consisting of a lecture or comments by one or more speakers, that plays in real time with video...
by director Steven R. Monroe and producer Lisa Hansen
Lisa M. Hansen
Lisa M. Hansen is an American film producer, production manager, actor, director, writer, and craft service person. She has worked in various genres, including thriller, action, drama, and science fiction...
, 11 deleted scene
Deleted scene
In Entertainment, especially the film and television industry, Deleted scenes are parts of a film removed or censored from or replaced by another scene in the final "cut", or version, of a film...
s, and teasers and trailers
Trailer (film)
A trailer or preview is an advertisement or a commercial for a feature film that will be exhibited in the future at a cinema. The term "trailer" comes from their having originally been shown at the end of a feature film screening. That practice did not last long, because patrons tended to leave the...
.
The DVD was banned in New Zealand
New Zealand
New Zealand is an island country in the south-western Pacific Ocean comprising two main landmasses and numerous smaller islands. The country is situated some east of Australia across the Tasman Sea, and roughly south of the Pacific island nations of New Caledonia, Fiji, and Tonga...
just before its April release.
Critical reception
Critical reaction to the film has been mostly negative, with a 35% 'Rotten' rating on Rotten TomatoesRotten Tomatoes
Rotten Tomatoes is a website devoted to reviews, information, and news of films—widely known as a film review aggregator. Its name derives from the cliché of audiences throwing tomatoes and other vegetables at a poor stage performance...
. Roger Ebert
Roger Ebert
Roger Joseph Ebert is an American film critic and screenwriter. He is the first film critic to win a Pulitzer Prize for Criticism.Ebert is known for his film review column and for the television programs Sneak Previews, At the Movies with Gene Siskel and Roger Ebert, and Siskel and Ebert and The...
gave the film zero stars (the same he gave the original) and described it as the "despicable remake of the despicable 1978 film". He claimed that it added "a phony sense of moral equivalency", stating "If I rape you, I have committed a crime. If you kill me, you have committed another one. The ideal outcome would be two people unharmed in the first place". With that, he concluded that the first half of the film was the truly offensive part, as the segment with the male characters tormenting and finally raping Jennifer was a more plausible scenario than the ways in which Jennifer got revenge against them. Ebert would later add "this (version) is more offensive, because it lingers lovingly and at greater length on realistic verbal, psychological and physical violence against the woman, and then reduces her "revenge" to cartoonish horror-flick impossibilities".
Mick LaSalle of the San Francisco Chronicle
San Francisco Chronicle
thumb|right|upright|The Chronicle Building following the [[1906 San Francisco earthquake|1906 earthquake]] and fireThe San Francisco Chronicle is a newspaper serving primarily the San Francisco Bay Area of the U.S. state of California, but distributed throughout Northern and Central California,...
wrote "In addition to all the obvious things that are disgusting about this movie, I Spit on Your Grave is trying to get us to hate each other. Hate it instead. It makes more sense and the hatred is much more deserved." Critic Andrew O'Hehir also denounced the notion that the film has a message, writing that it "Just piles imaginary atrocities on top of real ones, and then halfheartedly claims that it means something. Well, it doesn't".
Some support for the film in mainstream press came from The New York Times
The New York Times
The New York Times is an American daily newspaper founded and continuously published in New York City since 1851. The New York Times has won 106 Pulitzer Prizes, the most of any news organization...
, which wrote, "Female-empowerment fantasy or just plain prurience, “Grave” is extremely efficient grindhouse
Grindhouse
A grindhouse is an American term for a theater that mainly shows exploitation films. It is named after the defunct burlesque theaters located on 42nd Street in New York City, where 'bump n' grind' dancing and striptease were featured.- History :...
." V.A. Musetto, from The New York Post, also offered some support for the film, stating people should "see it if you can handle it".
Like the original, the film did find limited cult support. Fangoria Magazine
Fangoria
Fangoria is an American magazine devoted to horror and exploitation films, which has a number of associated brands:* Fangoria Comics* Fangoria Films* Fangoria RadioFangoria may also refer to:* Fangoria , a Spanish electro pop band...
, writes that I Spit on Your Grave "...is just as raw and upsetting in its onscreen brutality as the original. Perhaps more so, since the acting is significantly better this time around", and Paul McCannibal, from DreadCentral.com, agrees that the remake is "well executed, punishing, and viciously rewarding".