Of all the unlikely statistics I could think of, this is the third horror film to date I have watched about sex dolls. There was the actually very good Love Object – which I'd heartily recommend taking the time to check out if you haven't seen it yet – followed by the fun if slightly cheap and nasty The Bitch is Back. I'm sure there are more about there – I'd welcome any more weird and wonderful suggestions, of course – but completing the trio here is The Sex Doll She Bitch, which distinctly leans more on the comedic vein. Thankfully this is a relatively short offering – and I can tell you that sometimes in the world of extreme horror reviewing you're grateful for something short and sweet...

What is it about sex dolls that keeps coming back into the horror consciousness anyway? I can only think there's some sort of uncanny valley connection about them, them looking so human but not actually being human, that makes the thought of them coming to life in some way at least a little unnerving to at least some viewers. Or maybe the sexual connection makes them ideal fodder for the horror-comedy angle?

The story on this occasion – such as it is – follows an abusive, philandering husband who goes home to his wife after a night of drinking and having sex with a prostitute in this car. There's actually a few genuinely funny moments in this opening, with some truly absurd dialogue being delivered. But honestly it gets even more ridiculous from there, as we discover 'her indoors' happens to be a sex doll, and whose baby is also a regular doll. He's none too happy that his dinner is not on the table, and when he turns abusive his plastic spouse replies in kind – by killing him. But this is merely the start of a murderous spree that she launches into...

You might sense from my tone that there's nothing too heavy here, but that's not to say that there's nothing to like here. Much of the comedy hits its mark, and there were a number of laughs throughout, certainly enough to keep you watching as this short movie wears on. And while I feel like it slightly falls apart in the finale, where the characters are not quite as strong as some of the earlier ones and it maybe just pushes the elements of surrealism too far, it's made with enough pace and acted with enough verve to keep you entertained. It's scarcely high-brow cinema, but that's fine in some cases, and I feel it's absolutely fine here. I doubt it'll live long in the memory, but if you're up for a few chuckles and have half an hour to spare you could certainly do worse.

RATING: 6/10. I almost feel inspired from the back of this one to see if I can dig up more obscure sex doll horror movies, but then again maybe three is enough for one lifetime. Maybe if I can find enough there could be a sex doll horror monts? Anyway, back to topic, there's nothing much wrong with this one per se, but there is almost an in-built limitation with this sort of low-budget comedy-horror. While six out of ten may not look like much on the surface, it probably puts it above many of the movies you might compare it to, and – in the eyes of this hardened extreme horror reviewer at least – this is a harmless bit of fun.

 
Japan is certainly a nation that has a strong reputation for extreme cinema, but over my time reviewing at Film Gutter I am starting to come to the conclusion that reputation is built much more on quantity than quality. There are some gems, don't doubt it – brilliant movies like Audition and 2LDK are personal standouts – but those are heavily outweighed by a lot of offerings that I would consider pretty poor. There's never been any fear of pushing boundaries, of exploring taboo or of taking artistic risk. But all too often the ideas simply aren't matched by the execution, and we end up with movies that are kind of a mess. Maybe things were made in a rush to cash in on the splatter phase, maybe things were made with too low a budget... who knows.

Enter Shogun's Sadism, an infamous 1976 offering that I had been aware of for a while and decided to 'treat' myself to one Sunday afternoon. The term is loosely applied, because this was another Japanese offering that simply didn't gel with me on a personal level. The movie itself is almost a portmanteau, being made up of two separate stories – the first following a young Christian girl who gets captured as a slave and violently tortured, while the other follows the master of a brothel who falls in love with one of 'his' girls and attempts to run away with her. I would say – on the upside for this movie – the setting makes the movie feel pretty authentic to the era, and the effects don't look too bad given they are over forty years old as I write this.
 
Unfortunately that is about where the positives end for me. There's very limited characterisation of anyone involved, and our 'bad guys' are just that and nothing more. It also feels like there's insufficient explanation of the historical setting and context – something that many viewers may already be familiar with, but I'm afraid I wasn't. The acting is no more than OK, and the bottom line is that much of the torture and gore feels pretty extraneous and – dare I say for someone who reviews extreme horror on a weekly basis – exploitative. With the plot being so very thin that sense is enhanced as you watch along, and without much reason to care about the people enduring it into the bargain.
 
I'm aware this movie does have a big cult following, and many people love it and consider it a classic of Japanese extreme and splatter, but I'm afraid to say this one just left me cold. Even at a mere 80 minutes it feels overly long and the two storylines show little to no connection, which just feels rather clumsy to me. If there were three or four it would feel a bit more like a proper portmanteau, but with only two it feels more like a couple of different movies crammed together to make the one offering. If you were to run two parts of Guinea Pig together – probably the first two parts for the best analogy – then it might look something like this. And sure, that might appeal to you, but it's not for me.
 
RATING: 2.5/10. I can see that the content itself, on a visual level, is certainly disturbing and the shooting and style do make it feel authentically like its historic period. Despite that, this is a movie I found pretty boring. I've never been a huge fan of gore just for the sake of gore, and this feels like a movie that is really going for that style and approach. If you're particularly big on Japanese splatter then this might just be the kind of thing that would work for you, but I can't give it any more than a  poor 2.5/10.

As I’ve intimated before, there are a few gaps in my extreme movie viewing history, and despite the fact that I consider Irreversible a fantastic – if extremely hard to stomach – piece of work, I’ve yet to see anything else from its director Gaspar Noe. Well, 2019 will be the time to put that right, starting with the director’s debut feature fim, Seul Contre Tous – known in English as I Stand Alone. I am aware that this one serves as a follow-up to one of the director’s early short films, Carne, so I’ll be endavouring to get to that one very shortly too. In fact having seen this one I have to say I’m rather looking forward to it, and this one certainly cemented Noe as an excellent director in my own mind.

Philippe Nahon stars in this one as The Butcher, a man who has recently come out of jail for attacking a man attempting to seduce his young daughter. While he has been in prison his mute daughter has been in an institution, and as we come into the story he’s yet to go and see her having been released. In fact I don’t think this movie gets off to the strongest start, because we are fed an awful lot of information about the lead characters in a slightly rushed introduction – this might just be summarizing the events of Carne for those of us who haven’t seen it (IE me) so I was willing to forgive it and keep on watching.

The Butcher is currently living with a woman that he hates, and her mother, than he hates equally. In fact absolute burning hate and rage run through this movie like a river – it’s probably the most furious and nihilistic film I’ve seen since the bleak and destructive Seed, maybe even moreso. The Butcher is obsessed with the idea of justice, and the idea that he has been dealt a bad hand, and those with money are keeping those without money down. His new and pregnant lover has promised to buy him a butcher’s shop in her home town of Lille, but as it grows less and less likely this is going to happen, and The Butcher has to work through a host of low-paid, demeaning jobs, his anger towards her just builds until an explosive scene where she accuses him of cheating. This causes him to snap, punching her in the stomach multiple times in a pretty horrible scene. With this heinous act committed, he takes the mother’s gun and decides to head back to his home town of Paris to start again.

Unfortunately when he gets there many of the same problems stack up, including fresh issues of not having a home to go to and having only a handful of francs to live on. He tries to go to many old work acquaintances to try and get a job, but they can’t help him for various reasons – even the slaughterhouse that used to supply his meat is forced to turn him down. Similarly many of his old friends are down on their luck themselves, and aren’t able to offer him much financial support, although one is able to give him a place to crash for a few nights.

It’s a fascinating portrayal of a character who feels wronged by the world around him, and having been out of it in prison for so long is struggling horribly to find his place within it again. He’s almost a ghost in the world as we know it, drifting through the streets all but invisible. While the plot is relatively slim, it’s pepped up mightily by the endless trail of invective from our lead that illustrates his ever-darkening thought process as his life spirals horribly out of control. Rumour has it most of that dialogue was written by Noe while he was drunk, to capture that kind of sprawling, semi-aimless feeling, and it’s something you could easily believe listening to it. The movie is also punctuated with little visual messages to the reader throughout, including one that encourages you to switch off the film with a final warning before the conclusion plays out. In fact I won’t spoil what this is here, because it was just so strange and dark and fascinating it’d be a shame for you to come to it knowing anything more than that.

As a powerful statement from a new director bursting onto the scene, it’s hard to beat something like I Stand Alone – as a brutal manifesto on unreleased rage and the injustice that can cause it, and a gripping depiction of a life heading towards its nadir, this one packs a serious punch. There are one or two genuinely shocking moments for fans of the more physical elements of extreme cinema, but this a pure howl of rage that amply earns it place as extreme through every seething shot and scene.

RATING: 9/10. I was tempted to go full marks for this one, but I held it back a point for a slightly overdone info dump at the very beginning, as well as some of the camera trickery feeling a bit showy and unnecessary. But overall it’s hard not to be moved by this pure distillation of hatred and inchoate fury. The lead role is superbly played and it kept me absolutely riveted throughout. It’s not a pleasant film in any way – as I would expect from the man behind Irreversible – but again it is a very, very good one to warrant 9/10.

​
There have been a host of filmmakers who have specialized in making low-budget horror features, but one we’ve not talked about to date here at Film Gutter is Alex Chandon. And as one of the UK’s pioneers on the scene, it feels like it’s about time we rectified that. Bad Karma is one of the director’s short features which – like Drillbit or Chainsaw Scumf**k – comes with a strong cult reputation. And with a tagline of ‘Killer Krishnas, Bondage Beauties, Stupid Students and Rampaging Rednecks in the craziest, bloodiest short film you'll ever see!’ it felt like it would be absolutely remiss to pass this short film up.

It’s fair to say that Bad Karma lives up to that tagline and then some.

The madness begins almost immediately, with a seemingly peaceful barbeque being interrupted by a couple of visitors espousing the virtue of Hare Krishnas. However all is not as it seems, as the pair shove their way into the house before transforming into hideous monsters (given the budget, I think that the effects in general look pretty good) and rampaging through the house, killing most of the party apart from survivors Dave and Hana (who makes her getaway from the shower by spearing her attacker with the shower rail). It’s an absolutely chaotic opening ten minutes before you really have the chance to draw breath at all and figure out what the hell is going on.

Of course what’s going on more widely is every bit as weird and wonderful, as the Hare Krishnas are actually killer aliens who are out to kill humans to raise Kalima – not all of the details are clear there, but it scarcely matters when you’re watching. And unfortunately they still have to kill Dave and Hana in order to complete that mission, so when the last pair alive from the party head to their friends’ house for help, the killer aliens are off in hot pursuit. It’s not long before this second house is under siege too, but thankfully help is on the way in the shape up a group of ‘rednecks’ who swoop in to fight the Krishna threat and save the day. Now there’s a sentence I never thought I’d end up typing…

Even though the summary above sounds pretty wild, even that doesn’t really do it justice. Bad Karma is everything I like to see in low-budget horror – while some of the acting may not be that great, it’s all carried off with real commitment by all involved, and the energy and pace of the whole film is absolutely infectious. I think it’s hard not to enjoy this movie on some level, whether you’re laughing, horrified, baffled, intrigued or a little of all of those things. Everybody just looks like they’re having so much fun with the material that it’s hard for you as a viewer not to have fun with it as well. And where else are you liable to see rednecks and Hare Krishnas fighting to the death?

In surmising films I sometimes uses phrases like ‘despite its limitations’, but Bad Karma is one of those movies that works because of its limitations, in the vein of something like Combat Shock. If you pumped in the money for a slick, smooth version it would lose the heart and soul of what makes it great – the shot on video look and crazed energy just sort of sweep you along throughout the 36 minutes, and it’s a pretty heady experience. Admittedly this won’t be for everyone, but if you like high-energy movies with creative violence this one could well tick the boxes for you.

RATING: 8/10. Bad Karma is not perfect, but by wearing its faults on its sleeve it somehow becomes a much more charming experience than it could have been. The whole thing is a rollercoaster delivered with verve and enthusiasm by all involved, and really races through its runtime with barely a second to stop and breathe. These kind of movies can be hit and miss, but this one has to count as a hit, and scores itself plenty of good karma from me with an 8/10. One to just strap yourself in and enjoy the ride...

Hey! I see you, Nick Philips! You can’t hide behind that pseudonym, you know…

Earlier this year, I developed a borderline obsession with the low-budget work of one Nick Philips. Although a little detective work (thanks IMDB!) tells you even that’s not his real name, which is actually Nick Millard. And, with Satan’s Black Wedding, we have a third nom-de-plume thrown into the mix. That’s not to mention Alan Lindus, Clem Moser, Otto Wilmer, Jan Anders and even more besides that were also various guises for this director. And let’s not forget that most of these movies have more than one title – not that uncommon for the time, but it can become something of a minefield for a viewer.

So, this is Satan’s Black Wedding, and a distinctive change of pace from the slashers we’ve seen previously. The difference is apparent immediately, as we lead with piano music over Gothic art rather than that bloodstained openings we’re accustomed to. And while there are absolute lashings of claret in this one, it’s not about a murderer this time at all – it’s about an undead priest and the coven of vampires he is in control of, which is expanding all the time. Our story follows detective Mark Gray, who is hot on the case with a number of strange deaths going on, with bodies being completely drained of their blood. What could it be, I hear you wonder?

Anyway, in the midst of all this, Mark’s own sister has gone missing, and he’s been left with a very strange manuscript she was in the process of co-writing with a beautiful and mysterious woman whom Mark becomes entwined with. This leads him to the mysterious Father Daken, whom we eventually find out has officially been dead some 150 years…

Now, while I can’t say this is any kind of a classic, it does represent a step up on the likes of Criminally Insane and Doctor Bloodbath. It actually feels like a film, with characters seen interacting on screen. The production values aren’t great, but do feel a bit better apart from some pretty terrible sound design – it’s a little bit painful hearing all those hard s’s being hit throughout. The cast of actors is very different for this one, and they’re a little better, despite Father Daken looking a little like he’s on loan from Manos: The Hands of Fate. The plot does have some sort of intrigue and a twist ending that maybe even makes a little sense. The blood effects don’t look too bad, although the vampire teeth installed for each character are truly terrible and almost jolted me out of the film entirely.

So, yeah, it is bad, but it’s not terrible. There were bits of this film that I liked, but there were still a number of issues despite a host or areas being improved from Millard’s previous work. The atmosphere was decent and the musical choices were pretty good, the performances were mostly just one side or the other of OK and again the idea was decent enough, if maybe a bit too Hammer-esque to stand out as a really original concept. The problems really lie in the poor effects and a couple of instances where the acting became really hammy and overdone. I wouldn’t suggest anyone go out of their way to check this out, but if you have gotten a kick out of Millard/Philips’ work from before then this is certainly an improvement on those.

RATING: 3.5/10. In its own weird way, this one was a pleasant surprise. There are plenty of great movies it’s not a patch on, but it’s practically a masterpiece by the benchwork of the other offerings from this director. The idea and delivery has a certain appeal, but there are still a number of fundamental flaws in various areas of this one. If I can track down any more of the director’s work I just might, because it’s steadily become a sort of grim fascination for me. This one ranks as the best of the bunch so far, but still lands a modest 3.5/10.

Well, that was a strange experience.

The final part of the recent I Spit On Your Grave trilogy goes some way towards rectifying some of my significant complaints and problems of the previous two movies in the current canon  – it explores some of the issues surrounding revenge and retribution and how it can make a person feel in a way that is more realistic than anything before it. True, this is heavy-handed, but I was encouraged to see it in the early part of this film. Then again, there are scenes towards the end of the movie that seem to deeply undermine that particular message, so it’s kind of a mess and very hard to know what to make of it all told.

In this movie we revisit novelist Jennifer Hills, the protagonist of the first movie, who has moved to a different city and is living under the assumed name of Angela Datrinka (don't quote me on the spelling, but according to this movie it's Czech for avenging angel. How coincidental!). She's trying to get her life back on track with a pretty unspecified job, therapy – lots of therapy – as well as a rape survivors group. It's there she meets the militant Marla, who has some pretty extreme views on what should be done to rapists and basically men in general. The two hit it off right away and it's not long before the two are out exacting a toll on the people who have committed crimes against the members of the group. But when Marla goes missing after visiting an abusive ex, things are about to kick up another notch for Jennifer as her rage and desire for revenge overtake her completely...

Apart from having the same character and having I Spit On Your Grave in the title, this movie really is the oddball of the bunch. It's much slower and significantly less violent for long chunks, although when it does get rolling there is some nasty stuff in here, make no mistakes. It makes an effort to explore the philosophical issues around revenge, but is pretty blunt in its effort to do so – then again, I Spit On Your Grave has never been much renowned for subtlety. The almost random killing spree that goes on at the end of the movie doesn't really sit comfortably with the other movies, which have always been about a very targeted and tailored revenge.

With all of the above said, I still think I prefer it to the first couple of movies for what it is trying to do. It's not wildly successful in all respects, but bits of this work well, and it does have a decent twist (although again it's not fabulously executed). The dialogue is sometimes awkward, the pacing can be a bit unbalanced, some of the acting performances lack a bit of sparkle but this was, certainly something weightier than what has come before, and that for me marks it as the best of the three – although that was never an exacting standard to beat.

RATING: 5.5/10. A slightly different spin on the rape revenge movie here, so it gains a point or two for trying something that breaks with the convention of its predecessors. With that said, it doesn't really deliver what could have been some interesting concepts all that well. The cod psychology of the therapy sessions gets a bit much, some of the dialogue feels forced and the pace of the piece is uneven, but for all that there was more here that made it work as a proper movie rather than the simple violence-fest of the classic rape-revenge feature. On those grounds I have to give it something a bit above its predecessors, but I simply can't stray too high for a movie with so many problems, so it remains a distinctly average 5.5/10 from me.

That's a wrap on I Spit On Your Grave month, and I'll be doing my best to dodge the rape-revenge motif for a while having sat through five movies in a row in the subgenre. But expect plenty more unpleasantness from Film Gutter in the coming weeks and months...
 
 Alex Davis 

I Spit on Your Grave month rolls on with our latest review, with a three year gap between the remake that began a new trilogy of movies in this rape-revenge series. Not that I was expecting a great deal of plot links, or continuing storyline, or genuinely anticipating this movie would really offer anything greatly different to its 2010 predecessor. But sometimes once you get into a headspace and a zone it's as sensible as anything to just keep rolling on. There's also something to be said for having the chance to compare and contrast, so it's time for I Spit On Your Grave 2.

The story follows Katie, a beautiful young woman who is an aspiring model but happens to live in a run-down apartment and is struggling to get together the cash for a fresh set of photos for her portfolio. Don't go expecting any further characterisation than that, which is basically all set up within the first five minutes. She spies an ad for a free photoshoot with a new agency, which she takes up as a last resort, and arrives to find a bunch of creepy guys – foreign guys no less, Bulgarian as we find out a bit later on. I only mention it because it just screams out like some sort of sub-Hostel xenophobia which just grated on me all the way through. If the first movie drives at the point that no civilised American could resort to this kind of rape and abuse – only terrible 'redneck' stereotypes would do that – then this movie implies that only someone from outside of America could turn to such foul actions. It's lazy, lazy writing that plays to the worst in US horror cinema.
 
Anyway, she abandons the photo shoot when they ask her to take her clothes off, but one of the gang helpfully drops off her photos on a memory stick. Unfortunately he decides to make a return visit in the dead of night to photograph her while she's sleeping – I have no idea how he gets in as the door is locked when she tries to run away – and then proceeds to rape her on the floor of her apartment. Of course much worse is to come as the rest of the Bulgarian gang turn up, drug her and take her to some undefined basement. It's there that her true ordeal begins...

Of course, despite everything that Katie goes through, she somehow manages to survive and make her escape to find she is actually in Bulgaria. Her first point of order is to go to the police, but they betray her and hand her back to her original captors. From there things only intensify for her, until they bury her alive – only for her coffin to come crashing down into an underground tunnel. To be honest it's hard to honestly comprehend that whole section, as the grave is apparently laid on top of solid rock, but let's gloss over that one for now. Because this whole section invites two bigger criticisms – one, what the hell did authority figures do to this director? He falls back on this trick not once but twice – 'ooh, aren't the authorities bad, they're obviously all in cahoots with rapists and murderers' – to suggest it's something of a personal fixation. And hat's without even mentioning the sheriff from the first movie. Also, it is a pathetic carbon copy of the first movie – which wasn't that good to begin with. The whole miracle escape from death after being left for dead is a lazy ripoff of its predecessor to boot.
 
Naturally this movie doesn't stray from the formula, so Katie decides to live in the tunnels for a while, plotting her revenge against the vile gang who made her suffer so much. How does she find them in a completely unfamiliar city? How come these random, abandoned tunnels just happen to have all the equipment one could possibly need to enact a brutal revenge on a group of rapists and traffickers? I wouldn't hold your breath for either of those questions to be answered. I mean, the tunnels have electricity. Seriously. It is totally derelict, dusty and unused, but somehow the electricity works.

You can probably tell from my tone that I didn't like this movie. In fact, as much as I wasn't all that keen on the original, I Spit On Your Grave 2 marks another deterioration in quality. It's effectively a repetition of the previous offering but everything is just a step worse. The stereotypical characters on display here are a downgrade on the 'hicks' of the first – something I thought I would never say – and the lead actress is a step down on Sarah Butler from the first, who I thought did a solid enough job. Everything about Jemma Dallender is horribly bland, and while I have no doubt this is a very difficult and very harrowing role to play, she just doesn't do it convincingly enough for me. The plot is more preposterous, in terms of both the escape aspect and the revenge element – as well as being riddled with plot holes – and the revenge aspect somehow still comes across as much less interesting than the first.

RATING: 0/10. Put simply, ISOYG2 is shock cinema at is most boring and most vanilla. With characters I'd be complimenting with the term 'paper-thin', a bare bones storyline which is ridiculously overused in general and basically plagiarises its own precursor, lame acting and terrible decision-making on the behalf of the filmmakers, there's just no redeeming features here. I paid two pounds for this DVD and I still can't begin to describe how ripped off I feel. A shockingly poor 0/10 here.

And I still have the third movie to go...

Having started I Spit On Your Grave month a fortnight ago and all the way back in 1978, it's fair to say that the franchise went quiet for a while – that is if you ignore the unofficial sequel, Savage Vengance, which I honestly suggest you do. But, given, the spate of remakes coming out of Hollywood in the last decade, why not this one? The reimagining of I Spit on Your Grave hit cinemas pretty mutedly in 2010, but still went on to spawn two sequels over the next five years. So, how does this version of the infamous film measure up?

The story once again focuses on A young Jennifer Hills, a writer who decides to go away to a remote cabin in the woods (is any of this sounding familiar?) to get some work down on her latest novel. Unfortunately she seems to have strayed deep into Deliverance country, and when she upsets some 'good ol' boys' at the gas station they decide to go and put a scare into the 'fancy city girl'.

I might sound like I'm being facetious in my terminology there, but the characters are basically that cardboard cut-out. The five 'rednecks' – taking in such absurd stereotypes as the hard-ass sheriff and the harmonica-playing weirdo – verge on caricature, and are actually significantly less believable than the original. Maybe it was the setting or the timeframe of the original, or maybe things are played up too much here, but I was much more disbelieving of these characters, which really jarred me out of the story and created a significant impediment to the movie as a whole.

Of course it's not long before things start to get serious and their efforts to frighten Jennifer turn distinctly nasty. What follow are some pretty unpleasant scenes of humiliation, degradation and gang rape. In fact there's over a half an hour devoted to this until Jennifer is able to make a final, desperate escape by flinging herself into the river.
 
The final 45 minutes or so of the movie make up the 'revenge' element of the 'rape revenge' storyline, as Jennifer survives (in some unspecified way) before making her way back to mete out retribution on her attackers. She has a nasty, creative solution to deal with each of her five attackers, whom she tackles one by one before we close with a shot of her faintly smiling at the carnage she has wrought. Most of those kill scenes are pretty overblown and hard to believe, although in one or two cases you have to admire the originality if nothing else. In the first movie they felt simpler, and as a result far more feasible.
 
Plot-wise, that's basically all there is to it. It certainly doesn't do much the original didn't, or offer any real expansion on those themes or indeed the milieu of rape revenge. It lacks the emotional core of other modern offerings in the subgenre, with characters that are little more than paint by numbers. I was a little surprised there wasn't somebody called Cletus in their number, that's how absurd the characterisation of our 'rednecks' was. There's no expansion on the Jennifer character either, which thirty-some years on in genre filmmaking you might have expected. The original was laying down the prototype, and I'm more willing to forgive a few flaws there than I am with a modern offering.
 
That might sound like I'm nitpicking, but if you want to elicit real sympathy for Jennifer then the more you tell me about her the better. I suppose in this the rape scene was longer, which maybe the director thought might elicit more sympathy, but it just comes off as gratuitous, especially with the addition of handicam. Then you throw in five of the most jarring and unbelievable characters in movie history and we have something that doesn't connect the way it should. If you don't have that strong sympathy early on, you don't have the support of the viewer when she goes to get her revenge. There's no real message about revenge either – the final shot here just implies 'you know what, revenge is great! More people should be out doing it.'
 
I could only recommend this to you if you just like seeing violence, be it sexual violence or torture, committed on your screen. There's little else to recommend here – Sarah Butler's performance in the lead isn't bad, given a lousy script, but the rest of the acting is atrocious and overcooked, the storyline is overly familiar and cliched and everything just feels too long and drawn out. An hour and three quarters just shouldn't feel this long – it's only a few minutes over the original, but that seemed to go by much quicker. Bottom line, it's just a movie that doesn't really do anything you've not seen done better many times before.

RATING: 2.5/10. This remake is absolutely by the numbers, and given how extreme some of the content is it somehow still manages to be horribly boring. There's not a shred of originality here, and some of the worst depictions of 'country folk' I have ever had the misfortune to witness. I only award it 2.5 because I thought our female lead was solid in the role and some of the death scenes were at least creative. That's all I can give it – 2.5/10. Your time would honestly be better spent watching the original, which at least retains its raw quality all these years on.

With last week kicking off I Spit On Your Grave month with a look at the movie that arguably kicked off the rape-revenge subgenre, it's hard to move on without a look at the strange case of its unofficial sequel, Savage Vengeance.

This one remains such a curio of cinema history that its existence is probably more interesting that anything contained within it. Once again starring Camille Keaton – credited under three different pseudonyms depending on whether you read the opening credits, closing credits or closing character cards – this one sees her sort of reprising the role of Jennifer Hills, although for legal reasons she's simply Jennifer, with her surname clumsily cut out to prevent a possible lawsuit from the original's director Meir Zarchi. In fact I remember thinking to myself 'man, this Linda Lehl is a dead ringer for Camille Keaton' before realising my blunder when checking out the fact on IMDB. It's also unofficial in that it can't use the name I Spit on Your Grave, instead flagging itself as 'I Will Dance On Your Grave Volume 1' – despite being out 6 years after the first two entries in that series of completely unlinked films in Cannibal Hookers and Killing Spree.

So it has some things in common with the original – the lead actress, the character (sort of), elements of the storyline – but what it basically lacks is any of the heart and soul of what made I Spit On Your Grave stick with audiences. The fact that the opening title card reads 'Savage Vengance' – unable to spell even its own name correctly – is your first indicator that this one is going to be quite the mess.

The story begins with Jennifer pulling up her car and parking in the middle of nowhere before proceeding to head down to a waterfall to read. There she encounters four unnamed eighties stereotypes, who proceed to attack her in what I think is supposed to be a replay of the original movie – in fact the main thread of the story happens five years after this. But the assault in the original was brutal and shocking, whereas in this one it looks completely hokey and unbelievable. In fact in the three rape scenes in this movie (yep, count 'em, three) the actors all have their trousers on and the actress is wearing either jeans or tights. It's a moment of such jolting unrealism that it's almost hard to believe someone would put it into a movie and expect to get away with it. Frankly it's an insult to the original, which was frank and unflinching and left a distinct psychological impact.

Anyway, we move on five years from there, and – after a pretty random killing featuring a character yet to be introduced – Jennifer has just started at law school when her case is reference by her tutor. This upsets her a great deal, so she suggests to her friend Sam that they cut out of classes for a while to head to a cabin for a break. It's a weird moment to me that she would suggest it, given the events of the first movie, but then maybe I'm reading too much into the loose connection between the two movies.

On the road, Sam meets Dwayne, who rescues her from the strange attentions of Tommy – our killer from the entirely unrelated scene earlier on – and she fawns over him a bit before inviting him to their cabin. That's an invite she never gets to take up, as she accidentally stumbles upon Dwayne's house, where she finds herself attacked by both Dwayne and Tommy before Tommy stabs her. The more I think on it, the more I think that Tommy is meant to the Matthew character of the original, but without any of the moral dilemmas and peer pressure that actually made that one interesting.

With Sam missing, Jennifer goes to try and find her, bumping into Dwayne, who tells her Sam is at his house. Again, she happily goes with him – would you really, given past experiences? – but makes a partial escape into the woods before being grabbed and assaulted by both Dwayne and Tommy. To say these unrealistic rape scenes have lost their impact by now is an understatement – I've often said anything can be overdone, and this is in evidence here. It's not long however before Jennifer regroups before spending the last five or ten minutes getting a pretty basic revenge on her two attackers, in scenes that lack any of the real crunch or emotional catharsis of its predecessor.

From this you'll probably read that the plot is pretty terrible. But that doesn't really begin to capture the full awfulness of this one – it only runs to 65 minutes as apparently Camille Keaton walked off set before filming was finished, and having seen the end result here I can't blame her one bit. In fact even at only an hour and five minutes, this one still dragged interminably, with two ropey musical numbers spliced in, lots of long scenes of driving or running, some atrocious acting – in fact Keaton is the only passable performance here, although without a doubt she's limited by the source material here – and a lousy shot on video look with awful sound and an obnoxious, overdone soundtrack to boot.

As I said up front, you can only really watch this one as a curio, a hark back to a strange time of unofficial sequels and low-budget movies desperate to cash in on successes from elsewhere. By bringing in Keaton and implying that she is the same character from I Spit On Your Grave that tenuous link is maybe slightly strengthened, but unfortunately it just doesn't have any of the good qualities of that one in common.

RATING: 0/10. I don't like to give zeros out, but this attempted sequel is widely lamented, and with good reason. It does almost everything badly, almost to a point of being a parody of I Spit On Your Grave, if an inadvertent one. It's cheaply made and feels shockingly half-arsed, from its misspelt title card, dreadfully overbearing soundtrack, low-budget look and feel, unbelievable characters and absolutely unconvincing rape scenes that remove any potential impact of what might come later. Precious little to like here, and only one for absolutely completists of this particular series. Don't say I didn't warn you if you do decide to watch this one.

PS Believe it or not, there's a remake of this one due next summer...

Welcome to I Spit On Your Grave month! Yes, all through May we'll be exploring probably the most famous of rape-revenge series, kicking off today with a look at the original, followed by its unofficial sequel, and then reviews of the more recent trilogy. Why May? Well, why not? In fact, it's in no small part because it's the first month of the year with five Thursdays in it...

Anyway, as much as I love extreme horror, and have always watched plenty of it purely on a leisure basis before getting into Film Gutter, there remain a few inexplicable but nonetheless notable holes in my extreme education. That's not for any special reason – sometimes there are films that are just a bit hard to get hold of, or that you never really manage to make time for, or even movies that just don't appeal to you that hugely despite their reputation. One movie that falls into that category has certainly been I Spit On Your Grave, so this month-long series is in part an attempt to rectify that.
 
Having never been the world's biggest fan of the subgenre – in fact if it's something you love as a viewer you can likely safely add a mark or two to my ratings! – I came to the 1978 original with relatively low expectations. Of course, I was aware beforehand that there was a chance this could be a bit different – this was a fundamental forerunner of the rape revenge genre, and laid down a blueprint that many a film has followed since with varying results. And let's not forget that here in the UK this movie fell foul of the 'video nasty' panic to boot. So, is it worth the hype?
 
Well, yes and no.

The movie follows writer Jennifer Hills, who has had a host of short stories published and is now heading to a remote retreat to write her novel. On the way she meets three of the locals at a gas station, as well as the innocent Matthew, who drops off her shopping to the cabin. However the four of them are going to meet Jennifer again very soon, as when she goes out on the lake in her boat, two of these nefarious characters drag her boat away, pull her into the forest and proceed to violently rape her.
 
Following the attack, the group of rapists run from the house, before bullying Matthew into going back to kill her so she can't testify against them. But Matthew doesn't have the heart to do it, so gets some blood on the knife he was supposed to stab her with and takes it back to his 'friends'. Jennifer then takes the time to mend herself, trying to gain stability of body and mind, in a way that builds great empathy with this innocent victim and makes you care about her even more than you did before. It also tells us something more about her and who she is, adding to the tragedy of what had happened and the satisfaction in the revenge she ultimately takes.

In this time we get a sense of Keaton growing in confidence and determination, and we see her plans unfold in a strong, pro-active way. She uses both her intelligence and her feminine wiles to lure her attackers into her traps before dispatching each one of them in a horrible fashion. Matthew she hangs whilst he is having sex with her on the forest floor, her second attacker she draws into her bath before cutting his penis off (the scene switches pace and style brilliantly) before dispatching her third and fourth attackers on the lake, one with an axe and the last with the blades of the motorboat itself. Then we see Keaton driving the boat away in a suitable metaphor for moving on, that same steely look of determination on her face.

Personally I loved the way that this movie actually played with feminine sexuality not as something that just makes victims, but also gives power and strength. Each of men talks about how she flirted, the flesh she showed, how much she wanted what happened to her. The four vile perpetrators are still so drawn to her – and so embedded in that inexplicable belief that she was after what took place – and she uses that to her advantage. She doesn't have to overpower them, but she can outsmart them. It also makes for a compelling story and Keaton is very good in the role, but undoubtedly had more of substance and quality to work with than any of the material in the 'franchise' that followed.

Taken on its own merits, I Spit On Your Grave is certainly one of the better rape revenge movies I've seen. We get a sense of who our female character is, the assault itself comes almost out of nowhere and is the more brutal and shocking for it, and her process of healing and then claiming her vengeance is better played than most. Keaton doesn't always say much in the lead role, but does a lot with expressions and body language to show a journey from tormented to tormentor. There's also a message here about the male mindset towards sexuality that part of you wants to believe has died out, but sadly there's too much evident to the contrary to really believe it.

If this was one of the primogenitors of the subgenre, it remains ranked in my top five – although more recent takes like Julia and Landmine Goes Click still come in above it to my personal taste by playing with the formula and delivering something a little different.

RATING: 7.5/10. It's so hard to watch this movie without some sense of the baggage that comes along with it – unless you've lived on Mars all your life you're likely to have heard something about it. It's sometimes lauded as a cult classic, almost always considered a hugely disturbing movie, often dismissed as exploitative trash and occasionally even listed as one of the worst films ever made (just ask Roger Ebert). I'd agree that it is disturbing, but probably not with any of those other statements. It's a good example of a subgenre that typically has inherent limitations in terms of character, story and structure. Keaton does a fine job in the lead, and everyone else involved is serviceable enough in their limited roles. ISOYG certainly brought more of an emotional response that many rape revenge pieces, so will get a very creditable 7.5/10 from me.

Join us next week for a look at the unofficial sequel, Savage Vengeance...