Review for I Spit On Your Grave 2

I Spit On Your Grave 2 is a horrible sequel to a horrible remake of a horrible movie. A film that really is a classic example of someone just making a film and then slapping on a franchise name to cash in on it. The film has nothing to do with the original remake (directed and written by the same people) except for the bare bones of a plot being about rape and revenge. The film feels like a mix of Taken, Hostel and Saw (not surprising seeing as Thomas Fenton writer of Saw IV came up with the original story).

Katie (Jemma Dallender) is an aspiring model, but needs a new portfolio which will cost money. She accepts the offer from a flyer for free photos and this takes her to three Bulgarian brothers Ivan (Joe Absolom), Nicolay (Aleksander Aleksiev) and Georgy (Yavor Baharoff). They start the shoot innocently, until photographer Ivan states she must do some naked. At this, Katie rejects the offer and leaves.

However, the brothers (or Georgy to be more specific) do not take no for an answer. Breaking into Katie's apartment, Georgy brutally rapes Katie and then after killing one of her neighbours calls on his brothers for help. It is here that the film gets a little confusing and all the more repulsive as Katie is kidnapped and forced to have sex with sadistic Valko as well as being brutally tortured by the three brothers. I say confusing, because we later find they the brothers have somehow managed to smuggle her to Bulgaria? Now, if they had set the film in France with her trying to make it in the French fashion world, that I can buy, it may be easy to smuggle her across a few borders into Bulgaria. But this is a kidnapping from New York? How did they manage this? It's never explained and it's one of the many things that makes no sense.

You know the drill after this, she is left for dead, or buried to be precise (another stupid moment), recovers and exacts bloody revenge on those involved. This involves traps that even Jigsaw would be proud of and really at points I was convinced that Billy the Puppet was going to pop up and announce 'We're going to play a game'.

Now for those who want to experience this film I will not spoil what happens to her or them for that matter suffices to say, as with the original the first half is brutal and at times hard to watch. The last half degrades into torture porn and as much as the scumbags deserve everything they get, you don't really get much enjoyment out of watching Katie deliver this form of justice.

In some ways, I feel like the film knows who its audience is and so to criticise it on what it tries to be is almost redundant. It would be like complaining that a comedy film is trying to be funny. The film is there is shock, repulse and then play to our base instinct that the bad guys get what they deserved. This is true and so in a way it achieves that. The film is not as violent or disgusting as many (Hostel, Human Centipede for example) and despite the BBFC having to cut almost six minutes out of them I can only assume that (as with most tinkering they do these days) it is just lingering shots of nudity and sexual violence. I doubt that watching the film uncut will make a difference, though by all accounts the American version will be uncut for those who are curious.

When it comes down to it, I guess the only thing I can go on is whether it is an enjoyable film. No. No it's not. The plot is stupid, the suspensions of disbelief ridiculous and in a way the fact that it isn't so brutally violent that I had to switch off makes it a little pointless. Yes, it has come to it, where if I am watching a film called I Spit On Your Grave 2, I am expecting to at least have to pause and stop watching a few times or to want to switch it off entirely. The only reason I wanted to switch it off was because it was dull and boring. The acting is fine, the effects and splatter looks effective and the use of music for atmosphere makes up for the lack of anything else in the film. Sadly, there's not much else to say about the film other than if it wasn't called I Spit On Your Grave... no one would care.

Five minutes of deleted scenes are not the scenes cut out of the film to allow the BBFC to pass it (I don't think so, anyway). These are a longer scene of her taking a self picture with her phone which seems to serve only showing us more of her in underwear (not that there's anything wrong with that), a scene between Katie and Georgy is a little pointless and I can understand what they were trying to do to establish the desire that Georgy had for Katie, but really it wasn't necessary, as is a pointless scene in the police station that would have made more sense if it had all been in Bulgarian and so Katie couldn't understand it, but the language issue is a pointless one to bring up in this film, this is followed by a further pointless scene between the detective, the priest and then later with Ana. Maybe it was to try and fill in some plot holes, but you would need a whole other movie to do that.

I Spit On Your Grave 2 is not the worst sequel I have ever seen, but certainly not a film I enjoyed watching. If you enjoyed the original or the remake or if you like this type of film, then you may enjoy the film. It is doubtful if this film will be as controversial as the original, but hopefully with it just going straight to DVD it's the last sequel this franchise has to offer.