Unsullied

**

Unsullied (2014), as directed by former football player Simeon Rice, flirts with the rape revenge survivalist genre, recalling, obviously, I Spit on Your Grave/Day of the Woman (1978). Rice, though, just doesn’t have the heart to go for the jugular. The newer I Spit… movies have found ways to work around the explicitness of their ancestor as does Unsullied. The thing about Unsullied, though, is that it doesn’t even have the visceral guts to punish the dirtbags who kidnap the film’s lead heroine in a way that’d be satisfying. A majority of us who come to this genre want to see the human garbage that rape and abuse women to be met with great violence, hoping for prolonged suffering. I’m the first to admit that I consider what happens to women in these movies to be tough to take. I get no thrills—no jollies—out of seeing women raped and tortured. But I LOVE seeing women get even in the harshest, grittiest ways possible. That is why I’m a fan of the newer I Spit… movies. They are very good at meting out brutality towards all the putrid human scum that find it worthwhile to take from women what doesn’t belong to them.

I don’t think Unsullied is a bad film as much as it just is not a fulfilling or satisfying genre offering. I liked the athleticism of Murray Gray (a nice addition to the genre as few female heroines appear as athletic challenges for their abductors/rapists, only getting even after being left aside after the fact) starring as Reagan, a track star who often competed with (and wasn’t quite up to par to) her sister. Her sister went missing and Reagan deals with thoughts/flashbacks/conversations with her prior to vanishing. I think this is a smart inclusion in the screenplay, having us understand just what the loss of Reagan’s sister did to her. Of course, conveniently, it ties in with the two rich, privileged hunters, Noah and Mason (Rusty Joiner and James Gaudioso) , treated with great fondness by the nearby town of their cabin. They contribute financially to the town and their money is always welcome. They covet the hunt for new human female prey, considering women as playthings. They keep them in cages, feed them like mutts, and talk to them as if animals. This kind of treatment excites Noah and Mason, but they also love a good chase and capture. What they can’t quite anticipate is how gutsy, formidable, and tenacious Reagan is. I think that is the film’s best strength: Reagan’s unwillingness to give up and fold her tent. Instead Reagan keeps going. She has a limitless gas tank…if only the woods were more known to her. That is her disadvantage and why Noah and Mason have such confidence. And it is probable they’ve done this many times before. Reagan’s track athlete stamina and drive is overwhelming to them. Despite their weapons, ATVs, and knowledge of the land, Reagan has sheer force of will to evade them. That might be enough for some folks. But when the film pulls away from Reagan using a log to pummel a face, it took me right out of the film. Not even a gunshot is shown on screen. And the lack of real vengeance is a bit of a letdown. Reagan lost her sister to these monsters…let her beat the shit out of these guys! Instead she even pulls back when she has Noah where she wants him, and this allows him to gain an advantage!

Even getting in the truck with them in the first place when her car breaks down is a bit hard to swallow…I have a hard time believing Reagan, who has a sister never seen again, would put herself in a situation that might have possible similar results. I personally feel Reagan would be overly cautious. In fact, I’d have a hard believing she’d drive out as far as she does into unknown environs. Rice knows, though, that the whole point is for Reagan to wind up in those woods, on the run, on the offensive and defensive, encountering peril and deciding not to be a victim. Noah and Mason, too, just aren’t intimidating enough and besides an early off-screen rape of a waitress they also kidnap (Erin Boyes, as Zoe) and later (once again off-screen) throat slicing of a store owner they have rapport with (Cindy Karr), not much about them besides just their behavior towards women leaves an impression. I didn’t have that gulp in the throat. Even as Reagan is hanging upside down, her ankle caught in a rope trap, Mason fails to capitalize, and never was I expecting real danger towards her. And even before this, Mason catches Reagan from behind, uses chloroform to knock her out, dumps her in his boat, and is all bent out of shape when she escapes after awakening…why does he and Noah continue to wag their tongues at fate? As careful abducting killers, should they continue to tempt such fate by keeping a resourceful young woman alive? That they fall at their own clumsiness is no surprise.