Reviews & Ratings for
I Spit on Your Grave More at IMDbPro »Day of the Woman (original title)

Filter:

Best Chronological Prolific Authors Loved It Hated It Hide Spoilers:

Page 1 of 31:

[1] [2] [3] [4] [5] [6] [7] [8] [9] [10] [11]

Index

306 reviews in total

---

92 out of 106 people found the following review useful:
Brutal, 31 December 2005

Author: Gafke from United States

I tried to watch this film once before and made it up to the second rape scene before leaving the room, believing I was seriously about to throw up. I finally forced myself to watch it all the way through recently, and I'm glad I did.

Jennifer Hill is a young, hip, free-spirited woman of the 70s, who leaves her home in New York City for a long vacation in Connecticut, where she plans to write her first novel. Jennifer soon attracts the attention of four lowlife scumbags as she sunbathes in her bikini. The semi-evolved thugs kidnap Jennifer, drag her into the woods, rape her, beat her, sodomize her, beat her some more, follow her home, rape her again, kick her when she's down, make fun of her manuscript, rip it to shreds, rape her with a bottle, beat her up one last time and leave her, bleeding and unconscious on the floor of her vacation home. Damn. They send the retarded Matthew back into the house with a knife and instructions to kill her, but Matthew can't bring himself to do it. He tells the guys that he has killed her, and they stupidly believe him and leave. But Jennifer is alive, and as she heals from her hideous wounds and recovers her strength, she plots revenge against her rapists.

Roger Ebert called this the worst film ever made and feminists damned it to hell for all eternity, but you know what? I'm a woman and I liked it. Jennifer is no weak, whimpering, helpless little victim. She tries her best to fight back. When threats and violence fail to work in her favor, she uses the only other weapon she has: sex. The men are all stereotypical slobs, disgusting pigs who are clearly already emasculated and use Jennifer as an outlet for their frustration and rage. The rapes have nothing to do with sex and are portrayed most realistically - they are ugly, brutal, violent, nasty and completely devoid of eroticism. The sodomy scene was the one scene that horrified me the most, as Jennifer emits the most bloodcurdling scream of pain ever heard. It is very difficult not to flinch from that sound. Jennifer's revenge is every bit as bloody and painful, and nowhere is it more sadistic than in the infamous "bloodbath" scene. These guys all get what's coming to them, and Jennifer makes sure that the punishment fits the crime, turning the men into the helpless, pleading victims and feeding their own sadism right back to them.

Okay, so not all of the plot points make sense, and not everyone is going to agree with Jennifer's decision to kill the men, but it's still a powerful film. It's told primarily from Jennifer's point of view but it never takes sides. It simply tells the story and lets you decide - is Jennifer an insane psycho-killer who ought to go to jail for her crimes, or is she an angel of vengeance delivering poetic justice?

Scaredy cats like me might prefer to watch this film with the audio commentary by Joe Bob Briggs turned on. Joe Bob provides a lot of interesting information about the making of this film, and also supplies some much needed comic relief throughout.

---

86 out of 107 people found the following review useful:
A neglected cult classic worthy of an larger audience., 19 November 2003

Author: Miyagis_Sweaty_wifebeater (sirjosephu@aol.com) from Sacramento, CA

*** This review may contain spoilers ***

I SPIT ON YOUR GRAVE (1978) is one of the most notorious pictures ever released during the seventies. Along with LAST HOUSE ON THE LEFT and Thriller: A cruel picture, it's one of the greatest revenge flicks of that era. A feminist writer goes out to the country so she could have some peace and quiet whilst working on her first novel. Instead she runs into a group of male locals who decide to have some fun with her. Unlike many other movies of this ilk, I.S.O.Y.G. is not like other"exploitation films". There is nothing sexual or provocative in this picture. The director wanted to show what it's like to be raped and the after effects of such a traumatizing event. He went through great lengths in research and from his own personnel experience. I found it to be a very different film than all of the others that deal with the same subject matter. The film-making (for a first time director) was very well done and for the most part the acting was up to par. I am proud to admit that I have this film as part of my collection. Don't believe the hype. This is a good movie.

Highly recommended.

P.S. The subject matter is real graphic, but rape is not enjoyable. The director did an excellent job of portraying the true horror of it instead of hollywoodizing this dirty, degrading act.

---

64 out of 98 people found the following review useful:
Not the piece of trash that it's reputation suggests it to be, 10 June 2005

Author: The_Void from Beverley Hills, England

I Spit on Your Grave is a film that will never be accepted as a serious piece of film-making. This is thanks in part to the gratuitous rape and murder scenes, which don't exactly hold back the shocks; and it's also due to the time in which it was made. These days, as proved by the likes of 'Irreversible', films tackling rape in a shocking and disgusting way are more readily accepted, and even gain a strong reaction from many critics. This film was unfortunately (albeit for good reason) caught up in the 'video nasty debate' in the early eighties, and as such it's reputation has been diminished to such an extent that the likes of Roger Ebert have labelled it 'the worst film ever made' (even though The Blair Witch Project is the worst film ever made) and it's reaction in general tends to be of the bad variety. For some reason, we have found ourselves in a world where it's more than acceptable to give praise to 'A class' rape themed dramas such as Irreversible, but woe betide thee who labels this as a good film. Well, woe betides me then.

For a 'video nasty', I Spit on Your Grave has surprisingly good production values. While the acting often lets it down, the cinematography and even the script are more than decent and this helps the film in it's bid to get the praise it deserves. The story, which follows a New York writer who moves to a backwater part of the USA to work on her new novel, shortly before being horribly raped and beaten, is just a plot device for the more important elements of the plot. The main theme on display seems to be a comment on the male sexual ego and the way that women can have power over them. The film plays out like a revenge thriller, with the protagonist getting her own back on the men who raped her. This disrupts the main argument against this film; namely, that it's misogynistic, as much of the violence in the movie is actually directed against men. Of course, the rape scenes are the main crux of the film; but most of the gore comes later. Don't get me wrong, this is hardly an uplifting feminist drama; but it's not the worst film ever made either. Content caution though; it gets a bit extreme. A certain scene in a bathroom takes the prize for being one of the sickest sequences ever to grace the silver screen.

---

57 out of 90 people found the following review useful:
A pearl in this maligned genre, 31 December 2003
Author: fertilecelluloid from Mountains of Madness

I SPIT ON YOUR GRAVE is a straightforward rape/revenge drama with the tone of a documentary.

The coverage is plain, there is no music, there are no "stars", there are no concessions to a mainstream audience.

The exploitation film audience may be served, although the rape sequences are neither dynamic nor stylish.

Camille Keaton (Buster's granddaughter), a writer, drives to the country to stay at her house on the river. Local losers stalk her and rape her and rape her again.

The rest of the film details the victim's bloody revenge.

Labeled rubbish by the ignorant, this is very restrained exploitation that is often perversely effective and confronting.

The rape sequences are nasty and ugly, not enhanced by camera moves, rich sound effects or lurid angles.

On the other hand, the revenge sequences are more cinematically manipulative and poorly executed.

An intriguing document of merit.

---

31 out of 43 people found the following review useful:
Don't dismiss because of title., 3 September 2004

Author: marc Daneker from PA

*** This review may contain spoilers ***

I Spit On Your Grave has the worst title in history next to Attack of the Clones! This is not the campy, horror, gore fest you expect, it's an angrier, nastier take on deliverance.

A you writer goes to a secluded cabin for the summer to write her first novel.

Three local twenty-something's and the town idiot snatch her in the woods, take turns rapping and tormenting her, and in an obviously moronic move, put the dumb guy in charge of killing her. Well, he just can't do it and when she recovers she gets even.

What's working here is that there's a true emotional bond between the character and the audience. She's harassed a bit at first, then when a couple of the guys try for her attention and she turns her back they decided she's a tease and just needs to be getting some to come around. One by one they take her, let her go, then surround her again. The rapes are brutal, but honest, clumsy, messy, bloody affairs, her situation is tragic and hopeless and her revenge more than justified.

She has a gun, she could waste her time and ours being Chuck Bronson and just shooting them, but instead she plays them. She draws them back, seduces them, then Hangs, Castrates, Axes and out-board motor's them. The tag line says there's five men, they can't count, there's only four.

There's a genuine film under all the gore and fact that our protagonist spends nearly 80% of the film completely naked. However her emotions are as exposed as her body, her transformation from normality, to victim, through recovery and finally as executioner.

---

35 out of 53 people found the following review useful:
The horror of rape is graphically depicted., 8 April 2002

Author: scribus toasticus from United States

This is not a fun film. This is not an easy film to watch. But this is certainly not a film without merit. The first half of this film takes the audience through a terrible descent into a hell most of us can only imagine. The horror of rape. And this film treats this subject with a frightening realism. No fancy lighting. No mood music hanging in the background. Simply, the horror of rape. The horror of having one's life violated in the most unspeakably vile manner imaginable. That is the purpose of this film. This film does not want to entertain. It wants to repulse. And it succeeds! This film is as sickening as the rape it depicts. Why make a film like this? One might jump to the conclusion that the film was aimed at the prurient interests of perverts who enjoy viewing the degradation and violation of women. But that is an unfair conclusion. This is a film with a purpose. A message. And this film seems to be carefully designed to send that message loud and clear to every viewer: RAPE IS A TRULY HORRIBLE CRIME! Horrible beyond what most of us could ever imagine.

---

21 out of 30 people found the following review useful:
Fore Gore Movies's Fans only, 18 May 2002

Author: diegogue

First at all, this movie is not for all the audiences, but the fans of Wes Craven's "Last House on the left", Sam Peckimpah's "Straw Dogs", or Jorge Grau's "Coto de Caza" can find a good piece of sexual horror in "Day of the woman".

The story is simple, Jennifer, a beautiful girl came from New York to a cabin in the Connecticut woods with the intention of writing a novel in the summer. Three rednecks and a delivery boy (a retarded) rape her and humiliate her in very horrible ways (about 40 minutes of . Then, she takes revenge in unexpected ways too. The atmosphere, the silence, and the loneliness of the character and the absolutely explicit scenes of the rape, and a great amount of blood are the elements for creating the tension and the sensation of anguish that makes this movie special. No music, a lot of violence, briefs dialogues and an evident low budget becomes this film in a controversial cult movie.

---

51 out of 92 people found the following review useful:
That's it?, 13 November 2000
Author: Dan Grant (dan.grant@bell.ca) from Toronto, Ontario

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

---

14 out of 19 people found the following review useful:
Deadly Revenge, 4 January 2009

Author: Claudio Carvalho from Rio de Janeiro, Brazil

In summertime, the aspirant New Yorker writer Jennifer Hills (Camille Keaton) rents a lakeside cottage in the woods of the peaceful Park Hell Lane, Connecticut, to write her first novel during the vacation. A couple of days later, she is successively and brutally gang raped by three local bigoted rednecks and one retarded delivery boy from the supermarket. The humiliated and abused Jennifer does not report the sexual assault to the police and a couple of weeks later, she is physically recovered and has just plotted revenge against the rapists.

"Day of the Woman" is extremely realistic and violent; therefore the simple and scary story is absolutely credible. The unknown Camille Keaton has an amazing performance, especially in the impressive long sequence when she is repeatedly beaten and raped. However, this gore movie is only recommended for very specific audiences and prohibited to sensitive persons due to the savagery of most of the scenes. My vote is seven.

Title (Brazil): "A Vingança de Jennifer" ("The Revenge of Jennifer")

---

15 out of 21 people found the following review useful:
That's what I like in a woman - total submission., 4 October 2007

Author: lastliberal from United States

This is a hard flick to watch. When it was shown in theaters, people walked out after seeing certain scenes. Rape and castration are not everyone's cup of tea.

Revenge flicks are hot right now with The Brave One and Death Sentence. Of course, there is the Death Wish series that defined the genre. I originally saw this film after it came out on VHS. I've seen it many times, but that is a long story. I decided to revisit it after not seeing it for 17 years.

The rape scenes are brutal, especially the one on the rock. The revenge scenes are also harsh, but satisfying in a vengeance sort of way.

Arkansas native Camille Keaton, who is a grand-niece of Buster Keaton, gives a stirring performance as the victim. She even won a Best Actress award at the Catalonian International Film Festival. The rest of the cast only have this one film in their resume.

---

---

Page 1 of 31:

[1] [2] [3] [4] [5] [6] [7] [8] [9] [10] [11]

Add another review

---

Related Links

Plot summary	Plot synopsis	Ratings
Awards	Newsgroup reviews	External reviews
Parents Guide	Plot keywords	Main details
Your user reviews	Your vote history