New York writer Jennifer Hills relocates temporarily to a lakeside idyll in Connecticut to write her first novel. A local gang of four men attack, humiliate and r*pe her. They then order one of the gang to go back and kill her. He lies to them and says he has but they then learn that this is untrue and that she’s still alive. Jennifer then takes revenge on each of her r*pists in gruesome fashion.

Three films were highlighted above all others in the UK Video Nasties moral panic- The Evil Dead, Driller Killer and I Spit On Your Grave. All three were spoken of in the press as if they exemplified the depravity that the advent of home video could herald if tighter levels of censorship weren’t ushered in by the Tory government and quickly.

In fact, the first time I heard of I Spit On Your Grave was within the pages of Martin Barker’s excellent book The Video Nasties, a collection of essays which highlighted the merits of these ‘video nasties’, why stricter levels of censorship weren’t necessary and why this whole debacle was just a storm in a teacup whipped up by the media. This book felt like a lone voice in an era of witch-hunts and irrational scaremongering. Some commentators were even calling these films ‘snuff movies’ for God’s sake and insisted that people were actually being killed in them (!)

It wouldn’t be until the mid-90s when I could actually see Spit for myself on a crackly, seemingly tenth-generation VHS copy.

The film is certainly heady stuff. The r*pe scenes are prolonged, graphic and don’t shy away from showing every aspect of Jennifer’s humiliation and degradation. Yes, it’s extremely uncomfortable viewing. But I don’t believe that these sequences are titillating or frivolous.

It’s clear that I Spit On Your Grave (original title- Day of the Woman. The title was changed by The Jerry Gross Organisation who took over distribution after the film’s director, Meir Zarchi was having trouble getting the film distributed himself) is a feminist text rather than being anti-woman. Not only is Jennifer the victim of the men’s violence both sexually and physically, but she is also violated in other ways. Jennifer is shown in the early scenes of the film as being strong, independent and a free spirit. She also seems to be at peace with herself. The men within the gang don’t like this. An early example of another type of violation is when she is lying in a hammock by the edge of the lake next to her rented home. The tranquillity is shattered by two of the gang noisily riding by repeatedly in a speedboat. Before they leave they even make the boat rise up at one end. It’s easy to see it represents an erect penis and is symbolic of their (fragile) masculinity.

Another way that Jennifer is violated occurs after she has made it back to her rental accommodation after being r*ped in the wilderness. She finds that the gang have made it to her abode before her and the nightmare starts all over again. This time they even mockingly read out some of the novel she’s been writing and then tear up the manuscript. 

But whilst the film depicts the graphic and unrelenting r*pes, it’s also a film of empowerment. After the attacks, Jennifer doesn’t crumble but instead starts to rebuild her life. Rather than throwing away the torn-up rough draft of her book, she meticulously tapes the pieces back together again and continues to work on it.

She also starts to seek out the four members of the gang with the purpose of getting even. I like how each revenge scenario for each of her r*pists involves what has happened before to her but with her in control this time to get her revenge. She realises that the men see her merely as a sexual object and so she uses her sexuality to lure them into place so that she can dispense of them. And so we get the seduction and hanging of one of the gang, the bathtub castration of another and the murder of two of the gang on the lake which involves one of them also being hit where it hurts by way of the propellor of her powerboat (these were the two who attached a rope to her canoe earlier in the film and led her against her will to a remote area to r*pe her with their two friends). 

These acts of revenge aren’t exactly realistic (you may have to suspend disbelief when watching them) but are perfect for an exploitation film. In fact, they’re perfect for the subgenre that I Spit On Your Grave is a prime example of- the r*pe-revenge film. 

I Spit On Your Grave is a very good exploitation film which is anything but misogynistic. Yes, it’s presented in the sensationalistic genre of exploitation but that does nothing to dilute its strong pro-woman message. If only Mary Whitehouse had actually seen the film (or any of the films she campaigned against in 1983/4), she possibly wouldn’t have gotten so hot under the collar.

3.5 out of 5 stars