"Joining the long line of polished-up horror remakes, I Spit On Your Grave could probably queue-jump between The Hills Have Eyes and The Amityville Horror in terms of quality - its grimy, depressing low budget rape revenge plot in which a writer is brutalized during her cabin retreat and seeks revenge on her attackers, who left her for dead, is reasonably engaging, if a little hard to stomach by the time the lengthy first act and its horrific scenes propel us into some genuine flashes of brilliance.
The performances are decent enough. Sarah Butler, playing novelist Jennifer, does a truly commendable job portraying the victim, but is so cool and composed during the final two acts you can't help but hope one of the villains has a go back - sadly, thanks to some cracking scenes of torture, they never get the chance. The other standout is Sheriff Don Storch, played by Welsh actor Andrew Howard, a man so vile his departure is easily worth the wait, making violent retribution something to celebrate.
Why nobody back home questions her disappearance for what seems like an eternity, or comes looking for her at all is a mystery (especially when early on Jennifer is on the phone to someone back home) and the film does take a while to finally get moving, revelling in the hard to watch rape and torture scenes when some things are just better being left to the imagination. But without them we wouldn't be so pleased when our 'plucky' heroine decides it's just not good enough and takes the law into her own hands.
As Jennifer would go on to say, mocking her foes in the finale, "It was fun while it lasted", and I Spit On Your Grave is certainly that, with some inventive devices fit for torture (the literally eye-popping don't blink moment a particular favourite), that oddly, leave a lot to cheer about. It may not break new narrative ground, but it still satisfies, and considering some of the better horrors of yesteryear that have been humiliated by their remakes, this one proves one of the finest."
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