By Tristan Bishop
I remember being confounded when I heard the news – I Spit On Your Grave 2 was on the way. A remake of a controversial classic is one thing, but a sequel to one which didn’t have any sequels originally? And the press release referring to it as a ‘franchise’ set more than a few teeth on edge. Granted, the 2010 I Spit On Your Grave remake is generally regarded as one of the less awful of the current batch of re-imaginings of horror classics, but this seemed perhaps a step too far.
Then came the infamous quote. A British print magazine which shall remain nameless gave up the following as a sound bite – “The best horror sequel ever made”. Right there in black and white. Let’s forget such disappointing fare as Bride Of Frankenstein, or Dr Phibes Rises Again, or Halloween 3 – this is the real deal, folks! The benchmark has been set!
But all irritating sarcasm aside, my interest was suitably piqued. After all, whoever gave that quote must have been impressed (or possibly caught short in a moment of emotional weakness), so I was curious to see what director Steven R Monroe (who also directed the original as well as various SyFy channel master works like the Katharine Isabelle-starrer Ogre) had to offer.
Our main protagonist is Katie (Jemma Dallender), who is an aspiring model. When one agency tells her that she needs better portfolio pictures, she is given a number for a free photography service. At the studio she is greeted by Ivan, the photographer, played by that Joe Absolom out of EastEnders, as well as his brothers, the friendly but creepy Georgy, and druggie scum bag Nikolai. They take her photos, but when it is suggested she ‘shows a little more skin’ she cottons onto the scam and leaves. Later Georgy appears at her apartment to give her the pictures, and is making a very good job of looking like a creepy stalker. She thanks him and asks him to leave. However, soon afterwards he turns up in her apartment in the middle of the night, binds and rapes her. Her friend arrives and tries to stop him, but is knifed and killed. Georgy calls his brothers to come and sort out the mess, and Katie is force-fed ketamine and wakes in a dirty basement. She manages to escape (after some abuse and a second, mostly off-screen rape from Nikolai, which Georgy stops), and soon discovers she has been transported from New York to Bulgaria without her knowledge whilst drugged, with no clothes, save a short nightie, no money and no idea of how to get home.
This being a sequel to I Spit On Your Grave, then I won’t be offering up any massive spoilers when I reveal that she doesn’t go straight to the US Embassy and get on a plane home – she instead wreaks violent vengeance on her abusers. There are a couple of plot twists on the way there, albeit nothing too taxing or surprising. We’ve probably all seen a rape/revenge film before and they all follow the same pattern. So is there any reason to watch this? Well, that entirely depends on your reason for wanting to see the film.
For the casual film-goer, probably not. Whilst the film-makers are competent enough, the script is fairly dire, with Katie delivering lines earlier on such as ‘I know how to catch me some vermin’ (she grew up in the country you see – this is the sole bit of characterisation our central character is afforded), and her later leaving a Bible open, causing a priest’s eye to fall on the ‘Vengeance is mine’ verse. This is not a film which deals in subtlety – and in fact that would be excusable for a rough and ready exploitation film, but the second major weak point is, unfortunately, the lead actress. Whilst entirely convincing as a model, Dallender struggles to deliver the pitch black sarcasm as she eviscerates her attackers (although to be fair she isn’t given much to work with), and as for the scenes where she manhandles the rapists, her tiny frame seems entirely incapable of such action, and we are left with a growing sense of disbelief in what was already a fairly shaky concept.
To give them their due, though, the people who made this knew who they were making this for – the indiscriminate gore hounds amongst us – those who can happily ignore any minor shortcomings like acting or knowing how to move a camera at the right time if they are given a healthy dose of gore and/or sleaze. I occasionally count myself among these people if I’m in a particularly twisted mood, in fact. So does it deliver in the requisite brutality?
Yeah it does. And then some. The version under review has been, rather astoundingly, shorn of a massive six minutes at the behest of the BBFC (although this was by prior consultation, so the film has not technically been cut by them). I believe it differs somewhat to the unfinished ‘special festival cut’ shown at Frightfest, but as I did not attend, and have not yet seen the unrated version, and cannot find any information whatsoever as to exactly what was missing, I am left to assume this was all cut from the first half of the film, and the rape and humiliation of Katie – In fact, given the excesses of the original’s near three quarter hour rape sequences, I was somewhat surprised (and somewhat relieved, truth be told) that the sexual assaults take up only a couple of minutes of screen-time, and one takes place off-screen entirely (at least in this version). It’s still plenty grim though, just not in the league that I was expecting giving the series’ pedigree. Any such fears that the revenge parts in the second half of the film might have been subject to censorial interference are dashed however, as our angel of death slices, electrocutes, beats and subjects her former attackers to even worse tortures – one scene in particular left me with my jaw resting in my lap, and the gruesome details are just the sort that dedicated gore freaks will eat up.
So can I recommend it as the best horror sequel ever made? Or even as a worthwhile film to the average viewer? Not remotely, but the UK cut serves up the expected splattery revenge, and for those among us with a taste for the twisted, that will probably be enough to warrant a viewing.
I Spit On Your Grave 2 will be released to DVD on October 8th 2013.