I Spit on Your Grave (1978) - Meir Zarchi
Parent category: 1978 films - American cinema
Related: grave - exploitation film - rape/revenge trope
Not to be confused with: I Spit On Your Grave (1959) - Michel Gast
I Spit on Your Grave (1978) - Meir Zarchi [FR] [DE] [UK]
Day of the Woman, better known by its re-release title, I Spit on Your Grave, is one of the few movies directed by Meir Zarchi. The movie was controversial enough to earn an X rating upon its original U.S. release in 1978, and earned Zarchi a reputation without him having to make a second film.
Marketed as a mainstream film, it is one of the most gruesome movies in the exploitation film genre.
Tagline: This woman has just cut, chopped, broken and burned five men beyond recognition... but no jury in America would ever convict her! I SPIT ON YOUR GRAVE ... an act of revenge. [1]
Amazon review
Writer-director Meir Zarchi's controversial story of rape and revenge has lost none of its ability to shock viewers since it first gained notoriety in the late '70s. Camille Keaton (grand-niece of Buster Keaton and, later, Zarchi's wife) stars as a young woman who is terrorized and then brutally assaulted by four men while on vacation. After slowly pulling herself together, she methodically tracks down and butchers each of the perpetrators. Zarchi's film has been consistently accused of celebrating violence against women, and while the rape scenes are graphic, they also lack the voyeuristic qualities that earmark other similarly plotted exploitation films. If anything, Zarchi is guilty of awkward scripting; the dialogue is leaden, and Keaton's transformation from victim to avenger is too swift. But to label him a pornographer is wrong, and while the film is challenging--perhaps more than most audiences can bear--its depiction of the psychology of violence is undeniably powerful. --Paul Gaita
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