January 15, 2011
Marwencol Showtimes At The Uptown
TMR: Rape And Revenge And The Last House On The Left
A remake of the infamous movie I Spit on Your Grave will be out in October, so I took a look at the rape and revenge genre standout, Last House on the Left.
When I first heard of I Spit on Your Grave, I didn’t care what the movie was about, I just thought that the movie sounded awful. What a terrible title. It was only relatively recently that I actually found out what the movie was about and the aptly title genre it was a part of. The movie is about a woman writer, Jennifer, going out to the countryside for some quiet time to work on writing. A group of local men are offended by her existence as an independent woman and decide to give her a scare at her cottage, which quickly escalates to violence of not just a physical nature, but a sexual nature. After destroying her manuscript and repeatedly doing what the police refer to as a ‘date and dash,’ the men assign their mildly retarded associate to kill her, but he can’t go through with the act. Jennifer spends the next few days piecing her manuscript and psyche back together and then begins to carry out a plan of revenge against the men. This is a perfect example of the exploitation/horror subgenre of ‘rape and revenge.’
The rape and revenge genre, obviously, was never highly regarded, despite its rather high popularity during the 70’s. 
Since exploitation films are coming back ever since the torture porn genre gained a foothold, we should expect to see more of this brutal sort. Rape and revenge films follow three acts, like every other film ever. The three acts typically are as follows:
Act 1: A woman is raped, tortured, and left for dead.
Act 2: The woman lives and recuperates as best she can.
Act 3: The woman murders all of her attackers.
As you can see, I Spit on Your Grave follows the structure to an absolute tee. Most rape and revenge flicks follow the structure exactly as in this movie, with a few exceptions. Exceptions such as the French (they always do things differently) film Irreversible¸ which shows the same story in the manner of Momento (backwards), and with male friends of the victim seeking revenge (akin to Death Wish) and failing; and the classic Wes Craven film, The Last House on the Left.
What separated Last House on the Left from other rape and revenge flicks was that instead of the woman seeking revenge herself, it was her family, specifically her parents. In the original, Mary, the main girl, goes to a concert with her friend, whereas in the remake, she just goes to hang out with her friend while she’s vacationing with her parents at her second home in the woods. The two girls end up running afoul of villain Krug and his crew, consisting of his girlfriend, his friend Weasel (in the original) or his brother Francis (in the remake), and his son Junior/Justin. Beatings, amputations, murder, and rape occur, Mary escapes but is shot in the back while trying to swim away. The villains end up at Mary’s home and are given a place to stay the night by her parents. Mary makes it home, and the parents figure out what the scoundrels did, and take it upon themselves to avenge their daughter.
I watched the remake and am about to watch the original. I enjoyed the remake a fair deal because of Aaron Paul, from Breaking Bad, and Garret Dillahunt, who I first saw in Deadwood, and has been popping up in a bunch of movies in bit parts since, or at least, I’m noticing them now that I’m aware of him. Either way, they are both excellent actors and should be on your radars as well.
The following refers to the remake of Last House on the Left.
Theatre: No, despite the good acting of the two previously mentioned.
Buy: Still not good enough.
Rent: Sure thing.
Download: Definitely, give it a view.
To contact the author of this post: corey.hales@wildgunmen.com
just saw the original (like an hour ago at the plaza) I spit on your grave. not bad, but not as deep as you put it. they just rape her, there is no I don’t like you, and infact it was to get the dumb one laid.
yeah, i downloaded it and haven’t watched it yet. keep meaning to get to it, but stuff keeps coming up. i never expected it to be ‘deep’ as you put it, because it’s an exploitation film. if you want to see a shallow modern exploitation film, check out ‘bitchslap.’ it’s goddamn awful, but is kind of funny in how awful it is.
“The Last House On The Left” is actually based on a Ingmar Bergman movie called “The Virgin Springs”. It takes place in medieval Sweden, a young girl ends up getting raped and murdered by a group of herders. These three men decide they are in need of a place to rest and stumble upon a home, which of course was of this poor girls parents. The parents find out that these herders murdered their child when they try to sell them her clothes and exact their own revenge. This movie was well beyond it’s time for 1960, on a side note Max von Sydow (the father) is a bad ass in this movie. Also of note, “In The Bedroom” is another remake of this movie.
That’s pretty cool, I didn’t know that. I’ve heard a lot about Bergman but I’ve never gotten around to seeing anything he did. As for Max von Sydow, he’s always a bad ass. Dangerously so.