ON THE LIST: I Spit On Your Grave (1978)

Its titlecard is inappropriately similar to that of Deep Throat, isn't it? I mean for what is infamously a real torturefest, it conjures some rather unwelcome erotic connotations, doesn't it? But anyhow... I Spit On Your Grave was probably the first Nasty I ever saw, and I can't quite remember how I first came across it. Possibly my dad. But either way, I read up, added it to my LoveFilm list and got the DVD through the mail. I remember being unimpressed in terms of production, and overwhelmed by just how much rape you can fit into a single scene. Nowadays, I own the double DVD set with the unsettling remake attached, which I will probably review separately for this page at some point. So I have seen the movie a few times since, and with my later-gained film knowledge and admiration for Ebert's work, I look at it similarly, yet in more detail.

In my research, I found an amazing fact out. Director Meir Zarchi was once driving by a park in NY at night when a girl came running out of the bushes bloodied and naked. Zarchi helped her by seeking police and medical assistance, later receiving a thank-you letter and offer of reward (which Zarchi declined) from the girl's father. So what inspired thing did Zarchi decide to do in response? Sponsor a rape charity? Get involved with some kind of rehabilitation centre for sexual assault victims? Nah. He made I Spit On Your Grave. If you've read this far and still have no knowledge of the movie, continue and see why this seems like such an inappropriate decision.

Jennifer Hills (Camille Keaton) is an author who has rented a pretty stonking 'cabin' in the woods, where she plans to pen her novel in peace. But unfortunately she stops at the Wrong Gas Station that Roger Ebert so wonderfully summarised. It is occupied by weirdo hicks, including one simpleton who works as the bicycle delivery boy. Jennifer stupidly tells the strangers where she is staying, and the delivery boy Matthew (Richard Pace) is ordered up to deliver some groceries. He seems harmless enough, but his three buddies take a pervy liking to Jennifer, and kidnap her boat when she's sunbathing in it later. With their speedboat, they tow her to shore where they proceed to gang rape her in the woods.

It's long and painful to watch. It goes on for ages, and I seriously mean ages. Minute after minute. When it is finally, mercifully over, Jennifer drags herself back to the cabin. She grabs the phone...BAM! The fellas are all there before her. And they start to gang rape her again, this time forcing Matthew to join in. Yep, seriously. These two barely separated sequences make up some 25-odd minutes of solid rape. While cruel and gratuitous, it also just gets ridiculous. They beat the hell out of her and leave her for dead.


But Jennifer gets up again, and takes bloody revenge on all the guys, including poor Matthew, who expresses simple and confused remorse, and was definitely bullied into it. Ebert expertly says that the guys treat Matthew as "their pet retard". The revenge is silly and largely unexciting and lacking in mayhem. One part also relies on one of the guys being seduced by the girl he repeatedly raped and left for dead, without for a second hesitating due to her supposedly being dead and yet actually being alive to tell the tale. In any case, he gets what he deserves. So by the end, Jennifer has been lengthily and repeatedly sexually and physically assaulted, but emerges somewhat 'victorious' with all the guys dead. The end.

There are reports of real rowdy catcalls from audiences back when the movie opened. Apparently men would shout encouragement at the men during the rape scenes, and women would should encouragement at Jennifer during the revenge scenes. Ebert speculated as to what each group of hecklers thought about the portion of the movie for which they were silent. This movie is definitely brutal and distasteful, mostly for its ridiculously lengthy rape. People are still divided as to whether the movie is misogynist or feminist. If Zarchi's sentiments are to be believed, he intended it as something of a feminist movie. But the product is most definitely questionable. I mean, at the very least, if the suffering is meant to be equaled out by the end, each man should have received a 25-odd minute torture.

I Spit On Your Grave is pretty terrible on all levels. Camera work is minimal, sound quality is crap, acting and dialogue is wooden, and the entire scenario seems to me a really shitty way of responding to such a traumatic event as stumbling across a rape victim. It's a crappy product, and unlike most of the other overhyped titles, very much deserved its place on the ridiculous result of media sensationalisation that was the Video Nasty list.

ON THE LIST: The Driller Killer (1979)

...so we are informed in the opening seconds of Abel Ferarra's notorious The Driller Killer. I upped it as far as I dared, for I feared that my parent-of-two neighbour may well re-enact the movie's conclusion should I subject him to its repetitive Punk Rock soundtrack. Goddamn paper-thin walls. But I really liked this titlecard. 'Blah blah blah actual events blah blah suspects still at large blah blah' has been as inappropriately used as Macaulay Culkin's childhood bank account. 'This film should be played LOUD' not only acknowledges the movie's fictitious nature, but braces us for a thrill ride. I like its style.

Reno Miller (Ferarra under pseudonym Jimmy Laine) is an artist living in a squalid apartment in the city with his girlfriend Carol (Carolyn Marz) and dopey friend Pamela (Baybi Day). He is busy obsessing over his latest piece, which he has promised will be his best ever. But the girls have been racking up the phone bill, rent is months overdue and a large ensemble punk band have just moved into the building, screaming and thrashing out bass chords at 2am. The financial and artistic pressure starts to render him insane, and he starts off on impulsive drill attacks on hobos.
Of course, nowadays the Driller Killer would be fine in terms of tools, as efficient battery-pack drills are commonplace. But in 1979 when, apparently, drills were all mains-powered, he had no outlet for his creative massacring until the Porto-Pack belt is invented, allowing him to carry his power supply around with him. Neat, what this technology stuff can do!

If I'm honest, that's about all there is to it. Having said that, Driller Killer comes as one of very few titles to grace the list that is a fully realised picture. I would, of course, also mention Last House on the Left and Cannibal Holocaust in the same vein. I say this because despite its rather amateurish camera work, the dialogue, sets, editing, sound, score and lighting all really come together beautifully. It is perfectly usual in the Nasty/Exploitation genre for movies to be made for the sake of it, and thrown together in the most graceless manner. It inspires much confidence when all the elements are recognised and utilised.

There are several sequences which stand out, my favourite (in spite of its gruesomeness) is one in which Reno slices up a butchered rabbit his agent gave him. He then starts to repeatedly stab the head of the carcass. Cut into this are scenes shot from below of people dancing at a gig, with pinky red lights reflecting off of the shimmering lycra and glitter. Each time it cuts back, we are unsure for a second whether we are looking at mangled giblets or writhing dancers. It's quite mesmerising.

Use of darkness and shadow is great, the soundtrack is really very catchy, and the use of sound is also used very successfully. An entire funky feel of late '70s punk mayhem is about the picture, effortlessly evoked by Ferarra, who although scary-psychotic at times, doesn't handle his everyday dialogue too naturally. He is good at his crazed and raging monologues but terribly unconvincing when ranting about the phone bill. Unsurprisingly he made his name behind the camera as a director, famously helming Bad Lieutenant.

It's certain that The Driller Killer only gained the notoriety that it did because of the still used as its release cover taken from the scene of the hobo getting drilled in the head. That is probably the most violent scene in the movie; it doesn't seem a particularly explicit movie in any respect. Not much blood, barely any sex or nudity despite the rampant threesomes the friends' living arrangement surely facilitates. But it is a good movie, funky and underground and dingy. It's pretty cool.