Horror (US); 1980; Not Rated; 100 Minutes
Cast
Produced by Joseph Zbeda; Directed and Screenwritten by Meir Zarchi
Camille Keaton: Jennifer
Eron Tabor: Johnny
Richard Pace: Mathew
By DAVID KEYES
Here it is: with grotesque and repugnant tastes, the worst movie of 1980. My worst 1980 list was almost guaranteed to be led by "Prom Night", but all of that changed when I ran into the living nightmare of "I Spit On Your Grave" just recently. It is a work of sexist and unordinary humans, so lacking in human decency that they are the type of people cinema should immediately condemn. Calling the movie worthless would be mercy; it is repulsively pathetic, yes, but more so, it is the type of movie where even the most perverted human beings would immediately be turned off by it. Viewing it, I felt like I was betraying every intention that made me a film critic.
A girl gets raped up in the woods by four men, and then she kills them--end of story. That's it; no plot twists, no real plot, no decent characters, nothing. This entire 100-minute madness spends all its time with this woman being raped and tortured by four men, and then in the end, tables turn, and she gives them a taste of their own medicine.
These contemptible scenes are filmed with little dialogue and little dramatic notion, with characters so ridiculous and nasty that they could not even make it in the porn industry. These aspects tie in with the vile rape scenes, all culminating when the woman who was raped goes on a killing spree and mercilessly and disgustingly disposes of her rapists.
Example: she seduces one of them into her house, gives him a bath, and castrates him with a knife. At first, he doesn't even know it: he mumbles the words "that was so sweet it was painful," and finds himself covered in blood fountaining from his private area.
I couldn't honestly describe the other scenes, for they are just as bad, and just as tasteless. Sure, men probably deserve this treatment when they rape women, but why even bother making a movie about it? Does anyone think that people would be entertained by this kind of sick and nasty stuff?
Movies like "I Spit On Your Grave" are undoubtedly the sins of filmmaking; take one look at them, and they are instant disgraces, from top to bottom. Sometimes movies like this can be so bad and so clumsy that they are laughable; "I Spit On Your Grave" is not even that--it is worthless and sickening entertainment, deserving to only live at the bottom of a garbage bin. I hope I never lay eyes on it again.
FINAL VERDICT:
ZERO STARS