Rating summary

Movie		2.0
Video		4.5
Audio		4.5
Extras		0.5
Overall		3.0

I Spit on Your Grave 2 Blu-ray Movie Review

Or, "I Hock a Loogie on Your Tombstone. Again. Even Though I Didn't Hock on Yours Last Time Because That Was Another Girl and You Weren't Her Rapist and You're Not Dead and Therefore Had No Tombstone on Which to Hock Said Loogie. Part 2. The Remake."

Reviewed by Martin Liebman October 1, 2013

Parents always teach their children never to talk to strangers and certainly not to meet up with them in a shady part of town. Heads up: that advice doesn't suddenly lose its relevance when someone hits puberty, finishes school, lands a job, or moves out of their parents' house. Unfortunately, that lesson is lost on the victim in I Spit on Your Grave 2, a twenty-something with big aspirations in the wrong place at the wrong time and who finds herself in quite the pickle when the people she blindly trusts with her photographs come for more than a few glamour shots. It's the exact same song-and-dance from the other movies in the series -- the original classic and the remake -- that follow a terribly wronged victim as she exacts gruesome revenge on her attackers. The moral of the story? Is it "what goes around comes around?" Or is it "what forcibly goes in will be harshly squeezed out?" Yeah, it's that last one, it seems, and it ain't pretty, that's for sure.

I will spit.

Katie (Jemma Dallender) is an aspiring fashion model based out of New York but born and bred in Missouri. When she shares her portfolio with a friend she trusts, she's told she needs updated pictures with more cutting-edge style and less midwestern attitude. Unfortunately, she cannot afford to hire a top photographer. Instead, she answers an advertisement for free professional photos. She arrives and the photographer snaps a few pictures but insists she lose her clothes for a few nude shots. Katie refuses and leaves, believing the situation to be over. One night, she's awakened when she realizes one of the men has entered her apartment. She nearly escapes but is caught, bound, and raped. She's drugged and awakens in a dank, filthy Bulgarian basement where she's raped and badly mistreated. When she manages escape, she hatches a devious plan to exact revenge on those who have wronged her.

I Spit on Your Grave 2, like the other films of this sort, is largely a tale or two halves. First is the story of a young girl who falls into a nasty trap and finds herself a victim of unbelievable circumstances, taking abuse and barely living through the experience. Next is her story of punishing and painful revenge. I Spit on Your Grave 2 doesn't break from formula at all, which isn't necessarily a bad thing considering the formula's success but it certainly doesn't offer any real reason to watch for any expectation of novelty. The film offers pretty basic genre stuff, beginning with the establishment of the main character as a resourceful sort, which, of course, will come in handy as she seeks to punish those who wronged her. It does switch things up by leaving behind the country atmosphere in favor of a city setting, but therein lies one of the film's biggest problems in its failing to tell the audience how it is, exactly, the bad guys smuggled her overseas from New York to Bulgaria. Maybe TSA was asleep on the job or she was smuggled out during a government shutdown or taken on a rowboat. Who knows. If it was mentioned it was never made clear. But who cares about pesky little details like that, right? "Blood and revenge!" is the new "bread and circuses!" in a movie like this. Well, fear not, there's plenty of both (blood and revenge, not bread and circuses) at the end.

The problem is that I Spit on Your Grave 2 feels largely perfunctory and somewhat overlong. Oh, it does what it's supposed to do: graphically show a rape, leave the victim for dead, boil the audience's blood, and have the character gruesomely get back at her wrongdoers. Unfortunately, it's a lot of setup in the middle stretch for a payoff that is admittedly so sadistic and difficult to watch that most male viewers will hide their eyes until it's over with, even though the bad guys are "getting what they deserve." The filmmakers really pulled out all the stops on this one and men will never look at a clamp the same way again. On the way, however, is at least a decent depiction of Katie's transformation from unassuming regular girl to victim to hardened revenge-seeker who learns to trust nobody -- not even a man of the cloth -- and succeeds in her plans largely because her victims are morons who mindlessly follow her into her traps every single time. The kills range from near instantaneous to slow and hugely painful. The problem stems from the lack of surprise; the only detail missing going into the movie is how, exactly, Katie will repay her rapists and those who aid them in their endeavor. While the movie is well made -- it enjoys the craftsmanship of the man responsible for the first Spit remake, Steven R. Monroe -- it loses much of its impact because it's clear going in that this one will play out just like the others. The emotional impact isn't lost, but it's reduced enough to make the movie largely irrelevant as anything but the latest in "torture porn" cinema.

I Spit on Your Grave 2 Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

I Spit On Your Grave 2 offers a clean, well-defined 1080p transfer. The image is certainly rather drab with much of the action taking place in a basement and the Bulgarian underground. Even on the surface, it favors a slight push towards gray. Nevertheless, colors appear nicely defined and even within the picture's natural visual structure. There are some brighter, bolder shades inside a church that plays a fairly prominent role in the film's second half, offering some welcoming, and a little warm, reds and yellows. Details are excellent, bordering on perfect. Katie's hair, particularly early on, looks so real that is often feels like it would be possible to count individual strands. Facial textures are fantastic, brick and stone work on building façades and the underground locations look amazing, and gore is revealed with exacting detail. Image clarity is superb throughout. Black levels are fairly deep and accurate. Very light banding and noise appears in a few spots, but this is otherwise a top-flight transfer from Anchor Bay.

I Spit on Your Grave 2 Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

I Spit On Your Grave 2 features a well defined Dolby TrueHD 5.1 lossless soundtrack. Bass comes across heavily to start, rattling with little definition but solidifying as the film moves along. The track enjoys some nice, subtle, everyday, lived-in atmospherics to start. The light background noise of a diner and the general din of city streets are presented clearly and accurately, the latter both in New York and in Bulgaria. At several junctures, heavy music pumps into the stage, notably when Katie first enters the photography studio and later at a dance club where she gets rid of one of her rapists. The result is a full, lively stage with aggressive but accurate notes and heavy but even bass. Some of the sounds of torture -- electrocutions, screams -- play with bone-chilling clarity. Dialogue is presented evenly and accurately from the center channel. This is a rock-solid all-around track that gets most everything right.

I Spit on Your Grave 2 Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

I Spit On Your Grave 2 features only a collection of deleted scenes (HD, 5:23) and a DVD copy of the film.

I Spit on Your Grave 2 Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

I Spit On Your Grave 2 doesn't chart any new territory but instead follows formula almost to a fault. The picture loses much of its hot-blooded go-get-'em enthusiasm since it's all very much transparent and the sense of emotional shock seems severely lacking, not because the picture isn't disturbingly graphic but because it's just the same old song-and-dance as before. Otherwise, it's effectively gruesome and adequately crafted and performed, but how is it, again, that the bad guys get her back to Bulgaria from New York? Anchor Bay's Blu-ray release of I Spit on Your Grave 2 features rock-solid video and audio. Supplements are limited to a few minutes of deleted scenes. Worth a rental for series and genre fans; others are probably best served looking for something else to watch.