I Spit On Your Grave

"What the fuck?" There's a lot to say about this movie, but I... I just don't know what the hell... wow.

I've seen a lot of movies. I've seen a lot of horror, a lot of action, and a lot of comedy, but nothing I've ever watched previously really compares to this movie and how I reacted to it after the credits rolled.

I had never heard of I Spit On Your Grave, a remake of a 1978 thriller/gore-fest of the same title (although it was also released under another title, Day of the Women). My roommate put it on one night and, honestly, I had no interest in watching it at all... I just wanted to go to the bar. In the end, I'm glad I did because this was a film that everyone should see- it's that insane.

Before I get into the film itself, let me point something out: I watched this movie in the company of three girls. Probably not the best choice, as the entire film is about the brutal gang rape of a female and her ensuing revenge on her attackers. Also, I enjoy yelling at the television while movies play and I usually root for the bad guys- maybe this wasn't the best movie to cheer on the baddies...

Officially put in the rape/revenge genre, Grave follows the story of Jennifer Hills (Sarah Butler), a writer who sets out to a secluded cabin for the summer to write her next great novel. The beginning of the film follows her around as she: writes, sun-bathes, drinks, walks around half naked, runs around half naked without a sports bra on, smokes weed... that's pretty much all. Oh! Her sink is broke or some shit, so she calls a plumber.

This is where the movie takes a crazy turn. Note to the female readership: never call a plumber when you're an attractive 20-something hottie alone in the woods.

So the plumber, Matthew (who's a little... slow) goes to Jennifer's cabin to fix her plumbing. She rewards him with a kiss, and he absolutely freaks the hell out. He runs out and Jennifer is left totally confused as to what exactly just happened. We next see Matthew meeting up with his friends (who treat him like shit) and he tells the story of the girl giving him a kiss- one of his friends, Stanley (Daniel Franzese, the gay friend from Mean Girls), reveals to the group that he has a video of Jennifer changing and proceeds to show the crew a nighttime shot of her in her underwear.

Hearing Matthew's tale and seeing the video, the gang decides to head over to Jennifer's cabin that night to have some fun with her. The leader, Johnny (soap star Jeff Branson) is mad because the rest of his crew made fun of him, claiming that a girl as good looking as Jennifer could never get with a guy like him.

To make a long, uneasy and a bit horrible story short, the crew breaks into Jennifer's cabin and begin to torment her. Just as they are about to rape her, she escapes and runs through the woods. There, she stumbles across a police office by the name of Storch (Andrew Howard). Storch leads Jennifer back to the cabin to investigate her claims that guys attacked her. Once they get back, however, we see that Storch is in cahoots with the bad guys and shit gets REALLY crazy.

A long and drawn out rape scene ensues in the cabin and then continues on into the woods. The scene ends with Storch about to shoot Jennifer, but at the last second she jumps off a bridge and into a river. The gang never had a chance to kill her, but they all think she would have drowned in the water because she was savagely beaten and raped.

Turns out, that's not the case and shit's about to get REAL.

Jennifer is gone for a month and then stuff starts to happen that make the guys think she's still alive. The first to confirm this theory is Matthew, who... wait. I can't let you know what she does!

The revenge Jennifer gets, which is the best part of the entire movie and what everything leads up to, is God damn EPIC. I won't get into the details here because it's one of those things you really need to see for yourself (words just don't do it justice), but some of the shit she planned for these assholes was jaw-dropping and extremely fitting. Here's a short list of some of the stuff she unleashed on the redneck rapist pricks:

A noose
Fish-hooks through eyelids
A shotgun and a mans rectum
A more than graphic combination of teeth and pliers
A BEAR TRAP
A bathtub full of water and lye
A horse bit, some rope, some hedge clippers and a man's ding-dong

By this point in the movie, everyone is waiting to see how crazy her revenge is going to get. It was all fitting to each character, who all wronged her in their own way.

One of the more interesting parts of this film was watching it with girls. I never realized how different movies can be from a male and female perspective, and this was definitely what I considered a learning experience. I'm sitting there laughing while the rednecks are terrorizing the girl (it's a movie and the parts before the rape scenes were pretty funny), the girls were genuinely freaking out and covering their eyes. Claims of never being able to sleep ever again where uttered. But as the movie went on, we all felt bad for Jennifer despite the fact that the character wasn't really developed that well- she was just this poor victim that we all wanted to see be redeemed. When the main character started to get her revenge, everyone, especially the girls, were really into the movie.

There's a scene at the end where Jennifer has Storch tied up with a shotgun halfway up his ass. He thinks Jennifer has his daughter and begins to plead with her, saying "Please [let her go?]... she's just an innocent girl." In complete unison, all the girls watching the movie with me and Jennifer on the screen say "So was I".

That right there should say just about everything there is to say about this movie.

Ravenous

The house next door to my house burned down today. It happened pretty early, around 7 in the morning; firetrucks blocked my driveway until about 10:30. As a result of the barricade, I couldn't go to work until around 11... which was just enough time to watch one of the coolest movies I've seen in recent memory.

The dark-comedy, cannibalistic horror-thriller I'm referring to is Ravenous, a 1999 Antonia Bird flick starring Guy Pearce (The Kings Speech, The Count of Monte Cristo). Opposite Pearce is an awesome cast, led by the always great Robert Carlyle (28 Weeks Later, The Full Monty). Fun Fact: Carlyle played the role of Hitler in a 2003 tv movie; his role in Ravenous was just as demented.

Get ready for spoilers, even though I highly suggest going out and watching this bitch as soon as possible- it fucking rules.

The flick starts off with a bit of murky back-story. It's the 1840s and Captain John Boyd (Pearce) is being recognized for courage in the line of duty (similar to the Call of Duty: Black Ops). He went behind enemy lines and killed a shit load of Mexicans during his stint with the Army in the Mexican-American war. In actuality, he choked up and wasn't very courageous at all; he simply played dead while his men were being cut down around him and then killed his enemies after they brought the dead back to their fort (why they brought the dead back to their hide-out is unclear... and totally fucking stupid).

His commanding officers realize how much of a coward he is and, instead of demoting him (which would have looked bad due to his recent rank award), Boyd is sent to Fort Spencer in the remote Sierra Nevada mountains.

Once in exile, or at least the closest thing to it, Boyd meets the rag-tag skeleton crew manning the fort. Colonel Hart (Jeffery Jones) is the commanding officer, with Knox (Stephen Spinella) the alcoholic second in command. Along for the ride is the always high (he loves the peace pipe) Private Cleaves (David Arquette), Private Toffler (Jeremy Davies, aka Daniel Faraday from LOST), Private Reich (Neal McDonough) and an couple of Indians because why the fuck not, right?

So Boyd is kind of pissed and still confused about his earlier awards ceremony and even more confused about what led to his sudden courageousness at the enemy fort. After he played dead, he was thrown into a heap along with his dead comrades- as a result, he was covered in his fellow patriots' blood, some of which inevitably went down his throat. It was this unexpected and accidental consumption of blood that rejuvenated Boyd and led to his rampage.

He doesn't have much time at the fort to think ponder this discovery, as late one night a half dead guy stumbles into his camp. After saving the mans life, the stranger, who reveals himself to be an F.W. Colhoun, tells his tale. He was part of a west bound party that hit rough times. The group started off fine, but bad weather forced them into a cave. There, they quickly ran out of food and had to turn on their oxen and horses for sustenance- the eventually turned on each other. Colhoun barely escaped from the lead cannibal in the group, Colonel Ives. Ives killed four people total before Colhoun was able to escape.

As you can imagine, the group at Fort Spencer are collectively shocked by this mans claims and immediately set out to investigate. It's right around here where the story gets predictable. Colhoun leads them to the cave, where Reich and Boyd go in to investigate. While they're inside, Colhoun picks the rest of the men off one by one- the entire story was a trap and it's Colhoun who is actually the crazed cannibal killer.

After a crazy fight scene in the woods where everyone but Boyd dies (he only lives because he eats most of a very dead Reich), Boyd returns to camp to tell his tale. General Slauson is in charge now, taking over for Hart. When Boyd tells his story, no one really believes him, especially after Colhoun, now being refereed to by his real name Colonel Ives. Boyd flips a shit when he sees him and this only makes him look even more insane.

Ives starts fucking with Boyd immediately, playing dumb when Boyd accuses him around others, but revealing that he is actually a cannibal when they're alone. It all comes to a head when Ives tells Boyd about how the consumption of human flesh and blood causes the canibal to grow stronger and more healthy, kind of like getting 100 coins or a mushroom in Super Mario.

I'm going to fast forward to a bunch more crazy shit including a drunken chess game, a stew being made out of people meat, murdered horses, a murdered Arquette and a whole lot of facial hair.

There's a great shot near the end of the movie, when Boyd and Col. Hart are talking about cannibalism. Hart is arguing that all Boyd has to do is kill, "Kill to live," he yells right before stabbing a dagger into a table. The next shot is from behind the table, with the dagger dividing the screen, with Hart on one side and Boyd on the other. This is an awesome shot and drives home the point that Hart is on one side (cannibalism) and Boyd is on the other (the side of not being fucking crazy)- good vs evil, if you will.

A pretty epic final battle between Ives and Boyd ends the movie, with each stabbing/beating/maiming/bear-trapping ("That was really sneaky") each other a shit ton of times- maybe not that realistic but definitely awesome. I won't say who wins- consider this a cliff hanger until you go and watch the movie.

One of the only issues I had with this movie, the only one I can really think of besides a few rough cuts in the action sequences, was the soundtrack. In some scenes, it was great- it set the mood perfectly with a blend of tribal tunes and suspense driven strings. But in other parts it was pretty distracting and it made me wonder just who the hell decided to put certain songs in these otherwise great scenes.

In the end, this was a terribly interesting and entertaining film that caught me totally off guard. I loved it and can't help but think that the guys behind the Red Dead Redemption video game were fans of this movie as well (especially the American Appetite mini-stories). Catch this movie the next time you get a chance, I guarantee it will leave you hungry for more.