A writer who is brutalized during her cabin retreat seeks revenge on her attackers, who left her for dead.
In all honesty I thought a remake of this film would’ve been made a-lot earlier.
This time we see Sarah Butler take the lead role. It took Butler a week before she could bring herself to commit to making the film. She had reservations about taking the role, as she herself chooses not to watch horror movies because she finds them disturbing.
Her agent eventually talked her into it, stating that Sarah would be insane not to play someone so “scary and bad ass”. According to Jeff Branson, although it was never used, there was an “out word” that Sarah Butler was to use if the rape scenes got too intense for her.
I originally didn’t want to watch this feature, not because of the content but because of the affect the original film had on me and if I wanted to taint those memories. I know that may sound strange but I’d only watched the film twice before and it made a huge impression on me and over time it had built into something more in my mind.
Luckily for me I found that I really enjoyed the film, maybe it was because I was older and in a way more mature enough to watch this type of film. It has divided fans, with some fans stating it as a modern masterpiece ranging to absolute trash. I myself lie somewhere in the middle, I never saw it launching a new franchise though.
“I Spit On Your Grave” is one of the best reboots, I do recommend you atleast try and watch it.
Miscellaneous facts about the film:
In the final shooting script, Jennifer was intended to arrive at the cabin with her dog and it was to be featured heavily during the introduction of the film. The dog was written out of the script last minute because hiring a trained dog for the intended shooting schedule would put the movie over budget. According to the director Steven R. Monroe, “The dog would have made more money than anybody on the movie.”
At the beginning of the film, Jennifer buys $19.78 worth of gas. 1978 is the year the original film I Spit on Your Grave (1978) was released.
According to director Steven R. Monroe, the studio submitted an uncut version of the film to the MPAA to see if by chance they would get an R rating. The MPAA came back and said “look, you’ve got an NC-17 movie, but we don’t recommend that you cut it down because we feel like it’s really impactful.” They then decided against editing the film and released it as Unrated so it could play in more theaters.
While the location in which the film takes place is never identified, Louisiana inspection stickers can be seen on the vehicles.
After casting was completed, the actors had only two weeks to prepare and rehearse for the shoot.
Mollie Milligan’s pregnancy was written into the role of Mrs. Storch.
According to Jeff Branson, a total of 7 edits were submitted to the MPAA in order to obtain a Restricted (R) rating. Fearing that the drastic cuts necessary to release with an R-rating would dilute the intended impact of the film, the producers decided to release the original cut theatrically without an MPAA rating.
Chad Lindberg was originally supposed to play Stanley but opted to play Matthew instead.
Although rape is one of the main plot points in the film’s theme, the word is only used twice by two characters, at the very last scene of the movie.
After Matthew successfully fixes the water pipes in Jennifer’s bathroom at the beginning of the film, Jennifer embraces him with a hug and kiss, saying, “You saved me from having to bathe in the lake!” Soon after her brutal assault by Matthew and his friends, bathing in the lake is exactly what she ends up doing.
Roger Ebert gave this film zero stars as he did with the original film.
Sarah Butler accidentally chipped Jeff Branson’s tooth filming the torture scene where she is forcing him to perform fellatio on a magnum. Actual unloaded firearms were used throughout the movie rather than prop replicas due to budgetary constraints.
The powdered lye Jennifer mixes in the water filled bathtub to kill Andy was actually Alka-Seltzer.
The actors did all of their own stunts, barring two stunts that insurance wouldn’t cover: Jennifer jumping into the river to escape her attackers, and Matthew falling down the stairs.
If you enjoy the Horror stuff I do for SomeWhatNerdy then make sure you click on the links below:
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