WARNING: This Review May Contain Spoilers
Originally titled Day of the Woman in 1978, I Spit on your Grave was widely criticised for its take on gang rape and violence. So much so that it was branded as a video nasty when it was released in the UK, which is something I will go into more depth about in a later article. In a way, it took a lot of bravery for this to later be remade in 2010 which, as far as I know, received no criticism.
Stalking their prey
This is actually something I found more unnerving with the original film than with the remake. The hooting noises one evening and watching Jennifer from their speed boat made my stomach churn, because you know something’s going to happen – you just don’t know when. The voyeurism in the remake of them filming Jen through the window just isn’t as chilling.
Not the Only Victim
I think what I’m about to say is going to come across a little controversial but I actually feel pretty sorry for Matthew. Well, at first anyway and more so in the remake than the original. He is what I am sure would have been described in the 1970s as ‘simple’ (I refuse to use the word he’s called in I Spit on Your Grave). In the remake there is a lot more of him being forced to rape Jennifer whereas in the original he does actually decide to do it himself but once his hands are around her throat, all my sympathy for him has gone.
The Rape
In comparison to I Spit on your Grave, the rape scene in Day of the Woman is weirdly a lot more sedate but I have to admit, that actually makes it worse for me because you expect violence, don’t you? Yes, they slap Jennifer a few times and push her to the floor but outside of the actual act – that’s it. In I Spit on your Grave however, Jennifer is slapped, choked, almost drowned and to some extent mentally abused by the men.
Death Becomes Her – Or Does it?
There’s no surprise that in both films the men try to kill Jennifer so that their crime is never discovered, but unfortunately (for them) they’re unsuccessful. In Day of the Woman, they send Matthew back to the cabin to stab an unconscious Jennifer in the chest, but he’s so torn up by what they have done to her that he can’t do it. Of course, he leads the others to believe he succeeded. In I Spit on your Grave however, Jennifer jumps into the river herself before the sheriff is able to shoot her. They search for her, to make sure she’s dead – but no one ever finds a body.
The Revenge
Two weeks after the rape, Jennifer decides it is time to take her revenge. In Day of the Woman, we watch each of the four murders she commits to make the men pay for what they did to her whereas in the remake it seems that she decides to mess with them a little bit first. However, Johnny and the group believe its Matthew leaving the things for them because of his guilt and because they are certain she’s dead. Something I actually find pretty dull with these scenes in the remake is that Jennifer actually spends a lot of time talking before she kills them whereas in the original, especially with Andy and Stanley, she just gets on with it.
Even though she kills Matthew the same way in both films, or so we are led to believe, she lures him to her very differently. In the original film, Jennifer tells him that if he’d only asked she would have ‘given him a summer to remember’ and has sex with him in the forest, during which she loops a noose around his throat subsequently hanging him from a tree. In I Spit on your Grave, Jennifer uses his guilt and portrays sympathy for him to get him closer to her. Clearly, her sympathy for him is somewhat genuine as she doesn’t actually kill him at this point. Instead he is used as a tool to kill the sheriff at the end of the film. The deaths of Stanley, Andy and Johnny however are a little more gruesome and also in different order to the original film. I’m going to keep these deaths as a surprise and if you really want to know just give the films a watch.
In Conclusion
All in all, these films really are a cautionary tale for any man that has rape on his mind. However, there’s one main reason that I prefer the original over the remake – it doesn’t need the violence to chill you to your very core. As a woman, of course it made me uncomfortable – until Jennifer takes her revenge but I think the almost relaxed nature of the film made it feel more real than the overt violence of the remake.
