The main theme on display seems to be a comment on the male sexual ego and the way that women can have power over them. The story, which follows a New York writer who moves to a backwater part of the USA to work on her new novel, shortly before being horribly raped and beaten, is just a plot device for the more important elements of the plot. While the acting often lets it down, the cinematography and even the script are more than decent and this helps the film in it's bid to get the praise it deserves. For a 'video nasty', I Spit on Your Grave has surprisingly good production values. For some reason, we have found ourselves in a world where it's more than acceptable to give praise to 'A class' rape themed dramas such as Irreversible, but woe betide thee who labels this as a good film. This film was unfortunately (albeit for good reason) caught up in the 'video nasty debate' in the early eighties, and as such it's reputation has been diminished to such an extent that the likes of Roger Ebert have labelled it 'the worst film ever made' (even though The Blair Witch Project is the worst film ever made) and it's reaction in general tends to be of the bad variety. These days, as proved by the likes of 'Irreversible', films tackling rape in a shocking and disgusting way are more readily accepted, and even gain a strong reaction from many critics. This is thanks in part to the gratuitous rape and murder scenes, which don't exactly hold back the shocks and it's also due to the time in which it was made. I Spit on Your Grave is a film that will never be accepted as a serious piece of film-making.
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