I SPIT ON YOUR GRAVE/DAY OF THE WOMAN

US, 1978, 101 minutes, Colour.
Camille Keaton, Eron Tabor, Richard Pace.
Directed by Meir Sarchi.

The principal reason for watching I Spit on your Grave is the controversy that it caused in the 1970s and 1980s. It was denounced by many groups because of its subject matter and exploitative treatment. Noted critic, Roger Ebert, denounced it as the worst film have made. On the other hand, many groups supported the film, especially women’s groups who commented on the appalling treatment of women by men.

The director said that his story was based on his own experience of finding a raped woman and taking her to hospital and reporting the issue to the police who were ineffectual. His original title for his film was Day of the Woman, far less exploitative than the title which was used when the film became controversial.

Working with a small budget, the director has made a film which is more technically polished than might have been anticipated. Camille Keaton plays the woman, an author who rents a summer house in the countryside to write a novel. When she arrives at the town, she feels up her car and sees the owner of the garage as well as two men who would later be called slackers. She goes to her house, settles in comfortably and begins to write. Because she is in the remote countryside, she does go swimming in the nude but generally wears her bikini outside.

Her groceries delivered by Matthew, who is mentally and emotionally impaired. He hangs out with the idle men and the garage owner. Before long, they are prying on the woman, which leads to their raping and sexually abusing her. The men tried to force Matthew to lose his virginity in raping her.

The rape scenes are quite explicit, sometimes prolonged. They are meant to be very ugly, not in the least attractive to men in the audience, at least normal men in the audience got. Ultimately, after the men terrorise the woman, they set up Matthew to have sex with her, but he fails.

The film then turns into a vengeance drama, giving a lot of attention to the suffering of the woman, the emotional hurt as with physical degradation, and her revenge on each of the men. She begins with Matthew, seducing him and then killing him. She pursues the other men, especially one who falls from her boat and she circles him. She keeps the main perpetrator until last, the audience seeing that he is married man with children. He offers the usual arguments about men being men. He allows himself to be persuaded by her seductive manner into taking a bath where she castrates him.

The author then goes back to ordinary life, scarred by her experience, but satisfied with her vengeance.

In 1970s in the UK, there was a campaign against what were called ‘video nasties’, especially by the Festival of Light and the leadership of campaigner, Mary Whitehouse. This was one of the main examples for condemnation – though it seems so much more respectable than many of the other cheaply made, exploitative video nasties. This led to banning, burning of video copies and the film gaining a reputation and notoriety.

The film was re-made in 2010 by Steven R. Munroe, keeping the same plot and a lot of the detail. He then made a sequel which is really the same plot made over again, 2013.

The theme of rape and vengeance has been taken up in a wide variety of films including Sam Peckinpah’s Straw Dogs and its remake. The original Straw Dogs appeared in 1971. The revenge and vigilantes genre increased in popularity with the 1974 Death Wish with Charles Bronson.