SAVAGE VENGEANCE (1993) - A FILM GUTTER REVIEW

Dir. Donald Farmer, 65 mins, USA

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...

BY ALEX DAVIS