Anchor Bay are set to release Meir Zarchi's infamous I Spit on Your Grave AKA Day of the Woman (1978) on February 8th, 2011, day-and-date with the 2010 remake.
July 16, 1980-- A vile bag of garbage named "I Spit on Your Grave" is playing in Chicago theaters this week. It is a movie so sick, reprehensible and contemptible that I can hardly believe it's playing in respectable theaters, such as Plitt's United Artists. But it is. Attending it was one of the most depressing experiences of, my life.
This is a film without a shred of artistic distinction. It lacks even simple craftsmanship. There is no possible motive for exhibiting it, other than the totally cynical hope that it might make money. Perhaps it will make money: When I saw it at 11:20 a.m. on Monday, the theater contained a larger crowd than usual.
It was not just a large crowd, it was a profoundly disturbing one. I do not often attribute motives to audience members, nor do I try to read their minds, but the people who were sitting around me on Monday morning made it easy for me to know what they were thinking. They talked out loud. And if they seriously believed the things they were saying, they were vicarious sex criminals.
The story of ''I Spit on Your Grave" is told with moronic simplicity. A girl goes for a vacation in the woods. She sunbathes by a river. Two men speed by in a powerboat. They harass her. Later, they tow her boat to a rendezvous with two of their buddies. They strip the girl, beat her and rape her. She escapes into the woods. They find her, beat her, and rape her again. She crawls home. They are already there, beat her some more, and rape her again.
Two weeks later, somewhat recovered the girl lures one of the men out to her house, pretends to seduce him, and hangs him. She lures out another man and castrates him, leaving him to bleed to death in a bathtub. She kills the third man With an axe and disembowels the fourth with an outboard engine. End of movie.
These horrible events are shown with an absolute minimum of dialogue, which is so poorly recorded that it often cannot be heard. There is no attempt to develop the personalities of the characters - they are, simply, a girl and four men, one of them mentally retarded. The movie is nothing more or less than a series of attacks on the girl and then her attacks on the men, interrupted only by an unbelievably grotesque and inappropriate scene in which she enters a church And asks forgiveness for the murders she plans to commit.
How did the audience react to all of this? Those who were vocal seemed to be eating it up. The middle-aged, white-haired man two seats down from me, for example, talked aloud, After the first rape: "That was a good one!" After the second: "That'll show her!" After the third: "I've seen some good ones, but this is the best." When the tables turned and the woman started her killing spree, a woman in the back row shouted: "Cut him up, sister!" In several scenes, the other three men tried to force the retarded man to attack the girl. This inspired a lot of laughter and encouragement from the audience.
I wanted to turn to the man next to me and tell him his remarks were disgusting, but I did not. To hold his opinions at his age, he must already have suffered a fundamental loss of decent human feelings. I would have liked to talk with the woman in the back row, the one with the feminist solidarity for the movie's heroine. I wanted to ask If she'd been appalled by the movie's hour of rape scenes. As it was, at the film's end I walked out of the theater quickly, feeling unclean, ashamed and depressed.
This movie is an expression of the most diseased and perverted darker human natures, Because it is made artlessly, It flaunts its motives: There is no reason to see this movie except to be entertained by the sight of sadism and suffering. As a critic, I have never condemned the use of violence in films if I felt the filmmakers had an artistic reason for employing it. "I Spit on Your Grave" does not. It is a geek show. I wonder if its exhibitors saw it before they decided to play it, and if they felt as unclean afterward as I did.
Anchor Bay are set to release Meir Zarchi's infamous I Spit on Your Grave AKA Day of the Woman (1978) on February 8th, 2011, day-and-date with the 2010 remake.
i haven't seen either... but which one is better? are they both pretty close to the same movie?
Some people prefer the original, some the remake.
I prefer the remake.
Let me put it this way...neither of them are GOOD movies haha. I'll still buy them both though. The revenge scenes are really entertaining.
The original focuses more on the rape than the revenge. The remake focuses more on the revenge than the rape. The original is more disturbing, but the remake has better revenge scenes.
I say rent them before buying them. These movies DEFINITELY aren't for everyone and you should get your own opinion them before buying.
Anchor Bay are set to release Meir Zarchi's infamous I Spit on Your Grave AKA Day of the Woman (1978) on February 8th, 2011, day-and-date with the 2010 remake.
I really hope that this is going to be the cover art used for the Blu-Ray and that they don't mess with it. Leave the poster for the remake as the Blu-Ray cover art also...they'd look cool next to each other haha.
If it retains all the extras from the jam-packed Millenium Edition (IIRC) from few years ago, easy upgrade.
As for the remarks about the focus on the rape in the original, I think it was kind of necessary to shock male audiences that way back in the day. So that they would empathize with her and her mission of revenge. Now adays it seems like everyone is used to seeing stuff like this in movies. Hell, Lifetime is a channel devoted to it. It really is a film about female empowerment tough. She gets revenge on the monsters who did it to her. I know some, like Roger Ebert, disagree. And feel the film has no worth and is simply about exploitation. But the rape is presented so brutal, you can't help but feel for her.
Frankly Ebert's remarks seem more colored by the disgusting person/persons he sat near when he saw the movie, rather than the movie it's self. Certainly an unfair way to judge any movie. Especially one in this particular type of genre. Some people are just messed up in the head. Nuff Said.
Frankly Ebert's remarks seem more colored by the disgusting person/persons he sat near when he saw the movie, rather than the movie it's self. Certainly an unfair way to judge any movie. Especially one in this particular type of genre. Some people are just messed up in the head. Nuff Said.
I was just about to say the same thing. It seems he's letting the horrible people in his audience dictate how he feels about the movie. Had he watched it in a private screening room I'm sure he would have still hated the movie but he might not have been so overly critical lol. Although in his defense if I had watched the film my first time with people like that it would have been hard not to associate the movie with that horrible audience and experience.
Probably better than the film deserves, I should think.
I love the smell of rape in the morning! The original I Spit on Your Grave in HD will be soooooo beautiful! Day 1 purchase for sure!
Thanks for the Italian poster by the way. Haven't seen that before. I love the original US poster (amongst my all time favorite movie posters), but the Italian would have made me picked the movie as a blind buy as well.
I love the smell of rape in the morning! The original I Spit on Your Grave in HD will be soooooo beautiful! Day 1 purchase for sure!
Thanks for the Italian poster by the way. Haven't seen that before. I love the original US poster (amongst my all time favorite movie posters), but the Italian would have made me picked the movie as a blind buy as well.
I've been hearing that the original I Spit on Your Grave got a terrible transfer...let's hope that Anchor Bay gives us a better transfer.
I also hope that they give us a strong DTS-HD MA track for the remake....If they give a Dolby Digital or DTS track I'll be pissed.
I've been hearing that the original I Spit on Your Grave got a terrible transfer...let's hope that Anchor Bay gives us a better transfer.
I also hope that they give us a strong DTS-HD MA track for the remake....If they give a Dolby Digital or DTS track I'll be pissed.
The only transfer to judge by thus far is the Elite DVD transfer which is leagues above the old VHS transfers so I'm not sure who told you there was a bad transfer. To correct your rumor the transfer is more than sufficient for the 1978 version. Let's just hope we get the 2 audio commentaries (Joe Bob Briggs and Meir Zarchi) that were on the Elite Millenium edition. Honestly if it's taken from the previous master it will still look better than the DVD plus it will upgrade my rather ancient DVD for a few more years of debauchery. It's too bad we didn't get Silent Night, Deadly Night for Christmas this year. I think that film has element issues considering they had to use a video master to fill in some of the gore holes for the uncut version.
The only transfer to judge by thus far is the Elite DVD transfer which is leagues above the old VHS transfers so I'm not sure who told you there was a bad transfer. To correct your rumor the transfer is more than sufficient for the 1978 version.
The original I Spit On Your Grave has been released on Blu-ray in the UK, but apparently it has a poor transfer (and compulsory cuts).
The only transfer to judge by thus far is the Elite DVD transfer which is leagues above the old VHS transfers so I'm not sure who told you there was a bad transfer. To correct your rumor the transfer is more than sufficient for the 1978 version. Let's just hope we get the 2 audio commentaries (Joe Bob Briggs and Meir Zarchi) that were on the Elite Millenium edition. Honestly if it's taken from the previous master it will still look better than the DVD plus it will upgrade my rather ancient DVD for a few more years of debauchery. It's too bad we didn't get Silent Night, Deadly Night for Christmas this year. I think that film has element issues considering they had to use a video master to fill in some of the gore holes for the uncut version.
I'm not talking about any DVD or VHS of the movie. There is a Blu-Ray in the UK. I don't have it, but I've seen images and it looks horrible. Everyone who I know who has seen the transfer on their TV said it was awful.
Let's hope the US transfer is better than the UK transfer....
I'm not talking about any DVD or VHS of the movie. There is a Blu-Ray in the UK. I don't have it, but I've seen images and it looks horrible. Everyone who I know who has seen the transfer on their TV said it was awful.
Let's hope the US transfer is better than the UK transfer....
Since their would be no reason for the U.S. release to be cut, I have to assume Anchor Bay has entirely different materials to work with. Having said that, they have not released much from this period, so it's anyone's guess as to what the BD quality will be.
Honestly, both the original and remake are laughable trash. No matter what the director says. Joe Bob Briggs is the only reason I could handle the movie with getting bored.
I was quite pleased with the video on the most recent sd-dvd. i just hope they tweak the sound. never have i had to switch the volume up and down so much for a film. even in midnight sound mode. very inconsistent.
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I Spit on Your Grave (1978)
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