Released: April 2019
Director: Meir Zarchi
Not Rated
Run Time: 148 Minutes
Distributor: Deja Vu, LLC.
Genre: Horror/Thriller
Cast:
Camille Keaton: Jennifer Hills
Jamie Bernadette: Christy Hills
Maria Olson: Becky
Jim Tavare: Herman
Jonathan Peacy: Kevin
Jeremy Ferdman: Scotty
As a fan of horror movies, I often have a tendency to look far and wide for horror movies that most people would never hear about. When I was younger, I heard whispers of some horror movies that were banned in multiple countries and edited all to hell because of their graphic content. In the UK, these films were put on a “Video Nasties” list which listed every movie during the late 70s and early 80s films that had graphic sexual and violent content. Some of those films included The Evil Dead, Suspiria, The Last House on the Left, and The Hills Have Eyes. There were two films, however, that were more notorious than anything on that list: Cannibal Holocaust and I Spit On Your Grave. These are the movies that your parents warned you about. They are the boogeymen that hide in the dark. When I was younger, I had no way to get a hold of these movies. You couldn’t just walk into a video store and pick these off a shelf. In most video stores at the time in other states, these two movies would be found in the “adult” section. In Utah, we didn’t get the adult section in our video stores…..dammit. Over the past few years, I managed to get a hold of these films and……wow. They weren’t kidding. These movies didn’t mess around, especially I Spit On Your Grave. Well, 40 years later, we finally get a sequel to Meir Zarchi’s original film. Was it really a good idea? Nope.
Deja Vu picks up 40 years after the events of the original I Spit On Your Grave. Jennifer Hills had survived her horrendous ordeal of being gang-raped and left for dead. She eventually took her vengeance on her attackers. 40 years later, after being acquitted of murdering her attackers, Jennifer has a best-selling book detailing her ordeal while she does therapy groups for rape victims. She also has a daughter, Christy, who is a supermodel. Shortly after lunch, Jennifer and Christy are kidnapped by the relatives of the men who attacked Jennifer 40 years prior. Their intent, to deliver their own brand of justice. I’ll be honest: The set up to this film sounds really good on paper. Having Jennifer having to deal with the consequences of her vengeance is a pretty nifty idea, if not original. However, the execution is terrible. Instead of delivering on what made the original film so notorious, Zarchi manages to make the whole affair dull as ditch-water. There’s talking, a kidnapping, more talking……..more talking, Christy escapes, MORE talking, ad nauseum. It’s boring. That should never happen in a movie like this. You want it to be a slow-burner? Fine. Do some proper build-up and some proper characterization. That’s not what we get here. It’s a bad joke.
I’m going to lay it out straight: I Spit on Your Grave: Deja Vu is a very bad movie. I’m not saying that the original film was a great movie by any stretch of the imagination, but the original had a few things going for it that this movie doesn’t. For one: The time in which the original was released. The original was released in 1978 and it made a ton of waves, not necessarily in a good way, but the film basically went after the audience with claws. It was a vicious film with a rape scene that lasted 30-40 minutes. As horrible as it sounds, and that scene was horrifying, it was one of the more recognizable elements of the film, but I don’t think that was what got it banned. It was the level of violence that was unleashed towards Jennifer’s attackers. Two: It was better paced and it was unflinching in its brutality. Again, those were some of the qualities that attracted a certain section of the audience. This being an I Spit on Your Grave movie, there’s got to be a rape in there somewhere, but it feels cheap and more like an afterthought. I honestly don’t know if it was supposed to be in there originally, but it feels tacked on as if to try and shock the audience. Yeah, it’s not a pleasant scene to watch, and no rape scene should be, but I don’t think it was taken as seriously as it should have been. As “in-your-face” and over-the-top as the rape in the original film was, it was very devastating for Jennifer Hills, as it would be for any woman. The actual blood and guts aspect of the film is also very tame. There’s nothing really shocking here. It’s utterly predictable and there’s no real payoff.
I’m not a creep. I don’t watch these movies for the rape scenes. Those are very hard to sit through, even for a white guy in his mid-30s. No, you sit through that so you can get to the vengeance part of the film….but it doesn’t really deliver here. Everything is very restrained, which is bizarre considering that the 2010 remake went full-bore with its violence, as did the sequels. It’s a bloody movie, and there’s a decapitation, but overall, I’m disappointed in the actual revenge aspect of the film. For one, Christy manages to become a complete bad-ass the day after she was assaulted. There’s nothing earlier in the movie that would indicate that she had any sort of weapons training. The original film had Hills take her time to recuperate and plan out her vengeance. Here, Christy picks up a gun and she immediately knows how to use it. There’s a lot of things in this movie that don’t make a lot of sense. On top of that, the acting is really bad. The only two that manage to “act” are Camille Keaton and Jamie Bernadette. Look, it’s really cool to see Camille Keaton back in the role that infamously made her famous. Jamie is a lovely woman and she definitely delivered. Everyone else, though? Good grief. I haven’t seen acting THIS bad in a horror movie in years. I’m not saying that the performances in the original film were Oscar-worthy, but at least they were competent and committed to what was going on. Here, the rednecks are completely over-the-top to the point where they are not even funny-bad. They’re just bad. I don’t know if I can blame the actors for their performances, but I am going to lay the blame at Meir Zarchi’s feet.
Meir Zarchi has directed only three movies in his lifetime: The original I Spit on Your Grave, Don’t Mess With My Sister!, and this film. You can absolutely tell that he really doesn’t have much experience in the way of making movies, as he’s also only really written four. This was a movie made by an amateur. It is no surprise that the original film developed a cult following, but I find it surprising that it was Meir Zarchi that got it made. I generally don’t like coming down so hard on movies with an ultra-low budget, but this thing is bloated and could have been trimmed by about an hour, and you wouldn’t have lost anything. Yeah, the movie is two and a half hours long. It had no right to be. For movies like this, you really don’t want to drag it out. The subject matter in the original film was horrifying enough, but trying to stretch that over two hours, let alone 2.5, was a really bad idea. The film was dull, uninteresting with mostly irritating characters that were poorly acted and violence that was watered-down. Ultimately, this feels more like an inadvertent comedy of sorts, and when you’re dealing with a subject that is as horrific as rape, that is NOT the direction you want to take a movie like this.
I’m planning on doing a post about rape in film and television in the near future, but I want to get all my ducks in a row before I do it. I will be using I Spit On Your Grave: Deja Vu as an example of what NOT to do in a rape/revenge thriller. It’s going to be a tough post to write, but I think it’s a discussion that needs to happen. If you are a fan of the original I Spit on Your Grave, or have an appreciation for what that film was trying to do, skip this mess. It’s boring and it’s extremely tame by comparison.
My Final Recommendation: NOT worth the 20 bucks I spent on it. Stay away from this stinker. 2/10, and that’s because of Camille Keaton and Jamie Bernadette.