Day of the Woman (1978)

Director:

Meir Zarchi

Writer:

Meir Zarchi (writer)

Release Date:

3 November 1978 (USA)

Genre:

Drama | Horror | Thriller

Tagline:

The ultimate day of terror!

Plot:

An aspiring writer is repeatedly gang-raped, humiliated, and left for dead by four men whom she systematically hunts down to seek revenge.

Plot Keywords:

Revenge | Rape | Blood Bath | Cabin | Suspenders

Awards:

1 win

Cast

Camille Keaton	...	Jennifer Hills
Eron Tabor	...	Johnny
Richard Pace	...	Matthew Lucas
Anthony Nichols	...	Stanley
Gunter Kleemann	...	Andy
Alexis Magnotti	...	Attendant's Wife
Tammy Zarchi	...	The Children
Terry Zarchi	...	The Children
Traci Ferrante	...	Waitress
William Tasgal	...	Porter (as Bill Tasgal)
Isaac Agami	...	Butcher (as Isac Agami)
Ronit Haviv	...	Supermarket Girl

Also Known As:

I Hate Your Guts
I Spit on Your Grave (USA) (reissue title)
The Rape and Revenge of Jennifer Hill (USA) (poster title)

Runtime:

100 min | Argentina:95 min | UK:93 min (DVD version)

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Color:

Color (Eastmancolor)

Aspect Ratio:

1.85 : 1

Sound Mix:

Mono

Certification:

USA:R (edited for re-rating) | USA:Unrated (uncut video version) | USA:X (original rating) | Finland:(Banned) (cut) (1980) | Finland:K-18 (2006) | Australia:(Banned) (1997-2004) | Australia:R (original rating) (cut) | Australia:R (2004) (uncut) | Italy:VM18 | Philippines:(Banned) | Singapore:(Banned) | Thailand:(Banned) | China:(Banned) | Malaysia:(Banned) | Canada:14A (Alberta) | Norway:15 (uncut) (2006) | New Zealand:(Banned) (original rating) | Sweden:15 (uncut) (2006) | France:-16 | South Korea:18 (DVD rating: 2002) (uncut) | Italy:T (DVD) (special edition) | Argentina:18 | Canada:(Banned) (Nova Scotia) (original rating) | Canada:(Banned) (Ontario) | Canada:16+ (Quebec) (video rating) | Canada:18 (Nova Scotia) (re-rating) (1998) | Canada:R (Manitoba) | Iceland:(Banned) | Netherlands:16 | New Zealand:R18 (re-rating) (2004) | Norway:(Banned) (video version) (1982) | South Korea:18 (heavily cut) | West Germany:(Banned) | UK:(Banned) (1984-2001) | UK:18 (heavily cut) | Ireland:(Banned) (2002) | Germany:BPjM Restricted

Filming Locations:

Connecticut, USA

Company:

Cinemagic Pictures

Trivia:

Meir Zarchi said that he was inspired to do the film after helping a young woman who had been raped in New York. He tells of how a friend of his and his daughter were driving by a park when they witnessed a young woman crawling out of the bushes bloodied and naked (he later found out the girl was taking a common shortcut to meet with her boyfriend when she was attacked). They took the girl with them, took his daughter back home, and talked with the friend on whether they should take her to the hospital or to the police. They decided to take her to the police first, which they soon afterwards discovered was a mistake - the officer, whom Zarchi described as "not fit to wear the uniform", delayed taking her to the hospital and instead insisted she answer questions about her assailants, even though her jaw had been broken and she could hardly talk. Finally, Zarchi insisted to the officer that they take her to the hospital right away. Zarchi said that soon afterwards the girl's father wrote him a letter of thanks for helping his daughter, and wanted to give him a reward, which he turned down.

Goofs:

Continuity: When towards the end of the film Jennifer climbs into the boat, she comes from underwater so her hair is wet. While going in circles with the boat her hair is dry.

Quotes:

Johnny: [to Jennifer after she pulls a gun and tells him to take off his clothes] I don't like women giving me orders.

Movie Connections:

Referenced in For Goodness Sake II (1996)

Soundtrack:

Sola Perduta Abandonnato

That's it?

I first got wind of this film when I was about 16 years old and I bought a book about horror films. It told you about what they considered were some of the best films out there, some of the sickest and some of the worst. I Spit..... made the list of one of the sickest and one of the worst. But this film was nowhere to be found in suburban Ontario. As it was in most places, it was banned. It's funny, Last House On The Left was still available in London Ontario at the neighbourhood Blockbuster and I Spit.... was banned. To me, Last House is a much more disturbing film but it was still there. It doesn't make any sense. But that's how things are these days. So it has taken me almost twelve years to track this film down but I did. I had to order it off of the Internet, but I finally found some guy in Northern California that would sell it to me for almost $30.00 Canadian. Quite a hefty price for a film like this one, but when curiosity gets the best of you, nothing can stop the wheels of determination from running their course.

So, was all the fuss warranted? I don't think so. Not only is this film really not all that sleazy, it really isn't much of a horror film and it is not as horrific as people will have you believe. Where all the controversy comes from is that the woman gets raped six ways till Sunday in the film by some local idiots, one of them who happens to be somewhat retarded. So people get up in arms about it and say how bad it is and how determental towards woman's rights and the woman's movement and so on. When really what should have happened is, if people really wanted this film to be ostracized from the annals of film history, they should have just left it alone. I can guarantee you that if there wasn't such a push to ban this film, then no one would really give a damn about it. After all, it really is a poorly made film. In all seriousness, anyone with a video camera could have made this. It's really just soft core porn and then it transgresses into a sloppy revenge piece. There is no suspense, no drama, no shocks. What we have here is a woman that gets raped for a half an hour and then recovers enough so that she can extract revenge on her rapists. There is one scene that everyone talks about as being hard to stomach and that is the castration scene. But there is nothing to it. Just like there is nothing to any of the other killings. You don't see anything, all you get is a prosaic take on what is happening to the rapists. By the time this happens in the film, you are at least cogitating her revenge for her. You are thinking of all the things that she could do to the perverts and then she actually does some of them but you get no satisfaction in the action. You have to think and imagine what is happening. Now I can enjoy a film like Blair Witch and Texas Chainsaw Massacre and even Halloween where you have to use your imagination to some extent. But those films were at least scary, this one isn't.

I Spit On Your Grave is an over-hyped film given it's reputation by stuffy, repressed, squalid people that are just looking for a reason to hate something like this. I don't think this film is good but that does not mean that I think it should be banned. People should be able to make up their own minds and decide whether or not they want to watch it. After all, it is only a movie.

Deal with it.

6 out of 10