I spit on Your Grave (2010)

I Spit on your Grave  (2010)
Dir: Steven Monroe (Sasquatch Mountain/It, Waits)

Once again Hollywood decides to rape a classic cult film that needed no such treatment. Now I can understand Directors trying to cash in on the more popular franchises like Friday the 13th and Nightmare on Elm St. and even lesser popular films like Texas Chainsaw massacre and Dawn of the dead because they did well long ago, But when I hear a film like Last house On The Left and This on I Spit on your Grave is getting the remake treatment, I just wonder to myself .... Why? Sure the films were controversial upon original release but I spit On Your Grave was not a big release and it had more of a horror completest following through the years. Now one problem with this remake I had is that once again, The main antagonist ,much like in the Last House re-make looks like a ambercrombie model that just forgot to shave for a few days,when in the original the baddies looked genuinely creepy and hillbillyish. Also once again the film tries to hard to replicate the shocking elements of the film by upping the ante with more gore and focus more on the rape of the victim which in all honesty in this one is less effective than the original. In the original the victim does not speak and kills quick and with purpose and in this one there is too much dialog from the Jennifer character and her revenge is so over the top and planned out it takes away from the remorse you are supposed to feel for the victim and makes you wonder why she was so helpless prior to her attack. Now on to the synopsis and critique.
Jennifer is a writer heading to the woods to start on her latest novel,Upon arrival in town she suns into some rednecks at a gas station who make passes on her and they find out where she is headed. Shortly after Jennifer begins to feel as if she is being watched and she is not alone in these secluded woods.

She is in fact being stalked by to no surprise , the guys from the filling station. A few nights pass and the boys break into her Cabin and begin teasing her and physically molesting her at gunpoint. Of course this bunch is similar to the originals batch of pervs, We have the leader Johnny (Unshaved male model) , Andy his sidekick,Stanley a fat guy who enjoys videotaping everything and Matthew a mentally handicapped lackey who is hesitant to involve himself in the games these guys like playing.

Jennifer manages to make her escape and she runs into the town Sheriff in the woods,The officer and Jennifer head back to the cabin and he begins to doubt her story after finding alcohol and pot in her cabin. This is where the remake separates itself from the original. The sheriff then makes his own advances on the girl and the boys return to join in. Jennifer is then raped by Matthew who is forced into it and they take turns having there way with her once she escapes into the woods once again.

After the attack Jeniffer wander off and jumps off of a bridge right before the following gang can shoot her. Again the remake makes some changes here by allowing Jeniffer to escape , and the boys try to hunt her down for several days with no sign of the victim at all. A entire month passes and all the evidence has been disposed of , until signs of Jeniffer start popping up. Johnny receives a dead bird on his doorstep near one of her sandals and a video tape from Stanley's camera manages to find it's way to the sheriff's house. Now the guys believing this is a prank being played by Matthew who feels bad about the events and they all head out to find him and the revenge starts.

Matthew first finds Jeniffer at her cabin and he is choked out with a noose, before she heads out for the main baddies of the group. Jeniffer manages to capture Stanley and Andy while they are looking for Matthew in the woods. Stanley gets snagged by a bear trap and when he wakes he is tied to a tree, Jeniffer then Forces his eyes open with fish hooks and covers him in fish guts for birds to feed off of him. Meanwhile Andy is tied above a tub filled with water and lye which eats away at his face. Again this type of killing makes Jeniffer appear as a ruthless killer who could have easily defended herself from the initial attack making all of this a bit silly.

Jeniffer then makes her way back to the filling station where johnny works, after knocking him out , he wakes tied up nude in his shop where Jeniffer belittles him verbally before removing his teeth and then castrating him with hedge clippers. Once again taking the victim position away from Jeniffer a bit. After this killing the sheriff receives a phone call from home and his wife tells him  that their daughters new teacher is there and of course it is Jeniffer posing as the teacher. The sheriff rushes home to find that his daughter had been taken to a park with Jeniffer( now making our victim a awful person for kidnapping an innocent child). Upon arrival we see no child and he gets  knocked out from behind. Upon waking up he is bent over a chair with a shotgun shoved up his ass, after she proceeds to sodomies him with the barrel a bit we see that Matthew is unconscious across the room tied to the trigger, he awakes and upon moving the gun goes off killing them both. The film ends there but never says what happens to the sheriff's daughter or anything else, making the entire added sub plot of the sheriff pointless except to pad the body count for newer film goers who need more gore and no story to explain it, Leaving no closure at all.

So in closing what we have here is another awful remake just cashing in on the recent popularity of vintage horror and this one did not need to be made. The original was disturbing and garnered sympathy for the female lead , and made you root for her to get her revenge as she did quickly and quietly and realistically while this one turns the victim into a female version of Jason Vorhees meets Jigsaw. The film makers upped the gore to an extent for shock value and completely missed the point of what made the original so unsettling. Also by adding the sub plot of the sheriff it did nothing to make the film any better and Allowing a month to pass before she got her revenge opens up the question of why she didn't just get help and go home to recover from the traumatic events? If you have never seen the original than this is not a bad film for the newer horror fans out there but for those who have seen the original , it is just to easy to pick apart and see all of the flaws with this entry. I just don't get the newer fan of horror, I mean I enjoy gore more than most folks but this stuff is just such a stretch it is really hard to believe it could be pulled off especially by a small woman who could not fend for herself a month prior during her attack. I suppose this one will get some praise from the younger horror fans since it seems they dislike anything old and original due to build up's and grainy film, which is sad because there is no way you could tell me that if you watch the original back to back with the remake, that this one is better. And that goes for nearly every remake so far, especially the lesser known rape revenge genre re-rapes. If you are looking for a fresh take on the genre pick up Run Bitch Run instead, Honestly that would have made a better remake of the original than this piece of trash.
Gore:7 (decent work but, nothing spectacular by todays standards)
Nudity:5 (oddly less than in the original)
Story:5 ( the added sub plots really make this one lame,also way to many plot holes)
Characters:4 (Jeniffer's character is not nearly as good as the original and the rest are just annoying)
Overall: 5 out of 10 (Just another remake that did not need to happen, Here is hoping 2011 will bring more original horror and put a stop to all these awful rehashes of films that don't need them)