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The com­mon knowl­edge on the orig­i­nal ver­sion of I Spit On Your Grave is that it is the most noto­ri­ous of all rape-revenge films.  However, some­thing rarely brought into dis­cus­sion on this film is that is also fits squarely into the tra­di­tion of the Southern Discomfort film.  In fact, it is dou­bly inter­est­ing in this respect because it acts as the fem­i­nist exam­ple of this sub­genre, over­lay­ing gender-based con­cerns atop Southern Discomfort themes and motifs to cre­ate a vis­cer­ally effec­tive hybrid.

Think about the dif­fer­ences between Jennifer Hills and her adver­saries.  As a beau­ti­ful woman, she obvi­ously stirs their sense of lust — but that’s just one com­po­nent of their resentment/fascination towards her.  Just as impor­tant is the fact that she is a woman from the city — and as a result, her urban-bred ver­sion of fem­i­nin­ity har­bors a num­ber of qual­i­ties that would make your aver­age country-dwelling, machismo-minded man ner­vous.  For starters, Jennifer is inde­pen­dent:  she has gone to the coun­try with the idea of spend­ing the entire sum­mer alone to work on her first novel.  She is con­tent to travel and work by her­self, not need­ing the pres­ence of a man to com­plete her.

Even if she wanted male com­pany, it is unlikely she would play by the old-fashioned rules the men of this small town are used to.  Writer/director Meir Zarchi has her reveal her atti­tudes about men and sex in a moment when Jeffrey asks her if she has a boyfriend.  She doesn’t skip a beat, say­ing “I have many boyfriends” with a smile.  The brutes around her like to keep their world nice and small, either by liv­ing in an unhappy domes­tic sit­u­a­tion (like the leader, Johnny) or fan­ta­siz­ing aim­lessly about sex with women they’d never get close to under nor­mal cir­cum­stances.  Add Jennifer and her city-fueled world­li­ness to the mix and it’s inevitable that the fear, resent­ment and lust in these sti­fled men will rise to the surface.

Finally, it’s worth not­ing that despite its “rape-revenge” tag, I Spit On Your Grave fol­lows the stan­dard Southern Discomfort plot pro­gres­sion perfectly:

- A city dweller makes the mis­take of enter­ing the domain of some resent­ful coun­try types

- the city dweller gets over­pow­ered and attacked because they let their guard down in a place where the rural attack­ers have the ele­ment of surprise/home-field advantage

- the city dweller drops their refine­ment to beat their coun­try attack­ers at their own bru­tal game by apply­ing their city-developed intel­li­gence to the pri­mal art of vengeance

I Spit On Your Grave hits all of the above marks per­fectly but adds an extra kick to the mix by focus­ing it all through the prism of male/female rela­tions.  Jennifer uses her beauty like a weapon, lead­ing three of the four men into a false feel­ing of sex­ual dom­i­nance so she can strike at their moment of vul­ner­a­bil­ity.  This plot hook is one of the most con­tro­ver­sial ele­ments of the film, often caus­ing peo­ple who would oth­er­wise admire the film to hold it at arm’s length, but it’s cru­cially impor­tant to the film’s suc­cess.  Our hero­ine is smart enough to know her desir­abil­ity is her strongest weapon in this sit­u­a­tion and in using it as such she beats the backwards-thinking vil­lains at their own game by using their weak­ness against them.  This is per­fectly in line with kind of rea­son­ing heroes resort to dur­ing the finale of any Southern Discomfort movie.

Thus, I Spit On Your Grave rep­re­sents the per­fect inter­sec­tion between the rape-revenge and Southern Discomfort gen­res.  That might not be its main claim to fame but it’s one of its most dis­tinc­tive ele­ments and one of many rea­sons it deserves its place of promi­nence in the Exploitation Film pantheon.