I Spit on Your Grave 2

Vengeance is mine...

Katie is a model hoping to make it in NYC, but she has no idea that an audition that proves unsuccessful when she refuses to pose nude will lead to unimaginable horrors.

**½

 

I have mentioned in the past (Cruelty-Black Rose Torture, a recent review) that I don’t find enjoyment in the mistreatment of women on film. The rape revenge genre, however, often has some really good films I rather enjoy, particularly when women mete out the violent justice perpetrated on abusive men who have it coming. Oftentimes, though, there’s a whole lot of rape and very little revenge. I think the finest examples to me aren’t gratuitous, lengthy acts of long-standing rape that eventually numb us to them all. Ms 45 doesn’t go on and on with it for thirty minutes. It doesn’t need to. Sometimes, a few minutes, if the scene is told properly, can get the job done and yield itself to the rest of the film where the wronged gets even with those that harmed her, both sexually and psychologically. Day of the Woman, and the sequel to a remake under its other title, I Spit on Your Grave 2, both kind of go on a little long in the tooth. I think the problem specifically with Grave 2 is that a little over an hour of abuse kind of stretches my tolerance just a bit. The revenge is rather cool, but does it equal the amount of torment she suffers the first hour? I always applaud the actresses in these rape revenge thrillers because a good many of them are laid bare before us in naked states of despair and agony. It can be rather difficult. Doing a “tasteful” rape scene and still leave a disturbing impact can be difficult, but I think the remake of Craven’s Last House on the Left wasn’t too shabby in this regard. Some actresses just aren’t willing to go the extra mile when it comes to the authenticity of a rape scene where their characters are put through the sexual ringer. Jemma Dallender is an actress I’m unfamiliar but as “damaged goods” as the revenge is carried out breaks from every pore, and she looks the part most definitely. “Stellar performance” rarely calls itself to me when looking at actresses in this rather polarizing genre, because a good deal of what their characters go through are punishment, suffering, fear, and eventually rage.

I think Zoe Tamerlis in Ms. 45 certainly tops my list in the genre because she uses her face and expression without words to accentuate the different emotions that eventually spurn her killing spree. It is all there. Primarily there’s this primal scream through violence that erupts after taking a licking over a duration that can exhaust the senses unless you like that sort of thing. Jemma just lets her rage spill forth with little restraint. When you go through the kind of mistreatment her character endures, it makes sense that she’d be dishing out some harsh justice. That’s the point. Take a pretty little thing, have multiple scumbags rough her up and demoralize her, and then attempt to do away with her. This cocktail soon  becomes explosive and those responsible get got. I do admittedly get a vicarious thrill at seeing the little petite cutie unleash the savage upon repellent, twisted fucks who pulled the petals from the lovely flower. When Katie binds her chief tormenter, Georgy (Yavor Baharov), in the guts of a building where the rats call home and the sun never sees, opens nasty long knife wounds, places infectious bile on said wounds, and leaves him to gradually succumb to the injuries (often returning to remind him that his obsessive behavior and its results comes with a heavy penance), it is the ultimate example of a woman scorned and richly reaping her just reward for the torture she was put through. This is definitely a woman’s vengeance visited upon those who victimized her. Even as bad as Georgy gets it, his brother Ivan (Joe Absolom) receives an even worse punishment. A vice and testicles…does the mere thought of this make you cringe? Just wait until director Steven Moore shows in detail as the guy lies trapped unable to escape, with blood trickling out as Katie takes a break then turns, takes a break then turns until the deed is done! Yikes!

It takes some heavy duty humiliation, degradation, and disregard to encourage a model-wannabe in placing a man’s privates in a vice, twisting them until there’s a mush that spits out on the floor. So director Moore gives us a reason by showing his heroine beaten, ridiculed, mocked, and buried; left in a trunk and dropped in dug earth to suffocate and die, there’s plenty of incentive for Katie to lash out. Not just that, but they rip her dress and put her in the trunk naked. Really, Jemma goes beyond the call of duty when it comes to allowance in on screen belittlement and brutality. Ivan looks at her as he’s about to put the lid on the trunk, speaking in his own native tongue, “Goodbye.” He had just repeatedly punched her prior to this, with blood pooling out from Katie’s mouth, as stringed tears flow. He had even told her that if she had posed nude for him in New York City (a model, she is, wanting to make it, Ivan, a photographer, requested naked flesh a necessity she wasn’t willing to accept) none of what she had went through would have happened. Those together revolving around Georgy admit they’re disturbed, like a pack of wolves on-looking a torn apart foundling, and leave her to perish. At one point chained naked in a room to a pole, just a sight of human wreckage, Katie is like a misused object to be dealt with as her bullies see fit. It is only fitting that one of her first victims, Nicholay (Aleksandar Aleksiev), will meet his appropriate demise by being drowned in two commodes, one a toilet full of urine, the other full of shit; vomiting excrement prior to breathing your last breath, Nicholay receives a bit of the same bullying tactics used on the weak and innocent, a nice send off to such a piece of no-good vermin.

The film leads you to believe that Katie has been through the worst of it only to return to the hell again thanks to a woman who appears to be a type of social worker, Ana (Mary Stockley); instead, Ana reveals herself to be a monster accepting cash and delivering girls to degenerates to do as they so please. A scene has her playing opera on record as Katie is in the basement getting shocked by a cattle prod thanks to her sick hubby. Yep, there’s Katie on a damp mattress, taking the volts and convulsing as the torturer smiles with a wicked relish. The film pours it on; Katie hangs on with all she has. When he puts the cattle prod between her legs and shocks her for the final time, leaving her bleeding from her vagina onto that mattress, there’s this feeling of despicable excess to it all…the goal, I guess, is to build up so much vitriol in the audience for the villains, that their comeuppance isn’t just justified but warranted. Their execution shouldn’t be swift but slow. An eye for an eye as Katie returns the favor of the cattle prod (oh, and a little extra juice to leave him scorched by the end) and allows her social worker to spend some time in the dark to see if she likes it. It might just be worth the wait if you can make it through Katie’s dilemma.

The film begins in New York City then goes overseas to some poor city in Bulgaria (where Ivan and Georgy are from originally) with Katie transported against her will after Georgy murders a neighbor of hers and raped his vulnerable quest after invading her apartment. So not only does Katie get sodomized and tortured, she’s also kidnapped from her native soul and taken to Bulgaria! Lots of ideas towards stacking the deck against Katie in the screenplay. It’s amazing she’s still holding herself in one piece as Katie walks to the embassy. Bulgaria, like many of its European brethren, looks like the sun rarely peeks from the clouds, with shades of white and grey the seasonal norm. It’s depressing and bleak. Just the kind of environs for rapist bastards, and this is certainly a refuge for them to get their kicks and secure their pound of flesh and satiate their base desires from the misfortune of a victim outside the comforts of home. Yet, Katie becomes that spectre that lingers in the background and emerges to get her own pound of flesh.

While the priest tries to console her in the short time he has, the case worker (who looks spent and weary, probably the labor of a job like his in such an impoverished city and hangs on his face and in his demeanor) seems skeptical of Katie’s accusations that she’s been raped and abused! Like seeing her so distraught didn’t signify something was amiss, he later regrets not taking her seriously when all the signs of her experience are there and counted for, with dead bodies left after her wrath is uncaged.

While Jemma is mostly distraught and under a shroud of absolute turmoil, her performance is adequate but not extraordinary. It’s all hysterics and silence, both ends of the spectrum, with little room for subtlety (the part really has little to offer an actress but those two ends of the spectrum). So I’m sure I will read about how many consider her a bit extreme in emotional display. I’m not sure what else she could offer because the part demands for such explosive emotions. To cry and ache openly. To attempt to shoo them away even though she can do little to stop them. Lots of screaming and tears. Only upon a convenient rescue (thanks to an underground catacombs and her trunk’s weight causing a hole that drops her in it, opening upon such impact that her naked body had spilled out) does Katie get a second chance. A visit to a Catholic church (where two of her tormentors attend!), a reading of “Vengeance is Mine” from the Bible, and a newfound resurgent motivation to take out her pent up aggression on those that brought her to this dark place; Katie spends the remainder of her time doling out that vengeance. So there’s the movie, and it features all the traits of the rape-revenge genre, with enough rape and revenge to cover the bases and perhaps offer those needing a bit of both to enjoy I Spit on Your Grave 2.