The 2010 remake of the 70s schlocker hit does exactly what it sets out to do. It shoots straight on the original premise while giving the audience a bright new shiny wrapper to wash it down. Revenge is a greedy lover. It doesn’t just go for the tit for tat one-uppance of high school rivalries and sibling disagreements. It puts flaming bags of dog shit on your doorstep while it deflowers your sister.The idea of homicidal rapists nestled in the backroads and byways of Uncle Sam’s somewhat southerly states is not the freshest of concepts. The atrocities they are willing to commit when a pretty girl invades their stompin grounds…well.., we’ve seen this one before too. In all honesty, we’ve seen almost everything here before. Somehow though, Spit ends up working better than it should if nothing more than its simple reversal of gender in its final revenge scheme. It’s not bad enough to be ostracized for being weaker, less socially adept or just having weird hobbies. We know this and some readers may even know this a little too well. It is the idea of being targeted for something so completely beyond your control that the very idea of it is inescapable and infuriating. This is where Spit actually succeeds. You hate the antagonists a little more here and you revel a little more when theirs finally comes around. This is in essence the crux of a revenge picture, and that is what this is once you peel away some of the more horrific elements. I Spit on Your Grave is able to keep its roots in a couple of camps while still calling to the core horror audience. It suffers from the simple convention of being a movie of its time, but it does so with solid direction and ample performance from its lead and co-stars. It might not leave your jaw gaping in the end, but it might put a guilty sneer across your face in the form of a nice little shotgun crescendo that puts a literal and grisly twist to ass-to-mouth.
