Directed By: Steven R. Monroe
Written By: Stuart Morse
Based on The Screenplay “Day Of The Woman”: Meir Zarchi
Cinematography By: Neil Lisk
Editor: Daniel Duncan
Cast: Sarah Butler, Daniel Franzese, Jeff Branson, Andrew Howard, Tracy Walter, Rodney Eastman, Chad Lindburg
Writer Jennifer Hills takes a retreat from the city to a charming cabin in the woods to start on her next book. But Jennifer's presence in the small town attracts the attention of a few morally depraved locals who set out one night to teach this city girl a lesson. They break into her cabin to scare her. However, what starts out as terrifying acts of humiliation and intimidation, quickly and uncontrollably escalates into a night of physical abuse and torturous assault. But before they can kill her, Jennifer sacrifices her broken and beaten body to a raging river that washes her away. As time passes, the men slowly stop searching for her body and try to go back to life as usual. But that isn't about to happen. Against all odds, Jennifer Hills survived her ordeal. Now, with hell bent vengeance, Jennifer's sole purpose is to turn the tables on these animals and to inflict upon them every horrifying and torturous moment they carried out on her... only much, much worse.
Once this film was even announced I was shocked as he original was gruesome and controversial enough. That it has been imitated plenty of times. So how exactly were they going to not only remake it but also keep it to an rating of R on top of that.
It also raised the question of if you are going to remake a cult film that is well remembered more for it's brutality and not for it's quality. Could you try to make it better while sticking to the basics or keep it on that dismal level?
I can understand the film wants to show the dehumanizing of her. So that like in all films we see the hero fall and then make her comeback. Here she has to get to a primal level. Like an animal doing whatever she has to do to not only survive, but also have the men suffer before their deaths as they tortured her. Now while these men deserve what they get. It just seemed like an excuse for some cruelty executed torture and death scenes.
The span of this film is only a few days, but I wonder how she got the tools, clothes and all of a sudden the knowledge to execute her revenge? Especially so meticulously when it has clearly shown before she hardly knew how to do anything. Plus how she managed to do all of this and not be detected in this small county of hunters and hillbillies. Though she doesn't know her way around the woods, but somehow manages to outsmart guys who have loved there their entire lives.
I can understand the crowd pleasing aspect of the film, but on the end it feels like a waste.
According to director Steven R. Monroe, the studio submitted an uncut version of the film to the MPAA to see if by chance they would get an R rating. The MPAA came back and said "look, you've got an NC-17 movie, but we don't recommend that you cut it down because we feel like it's really impactful." They then decided against editing the film and released it as Unrated so it could play in more theaters.
I wasn't compelled, I didn't need to see it. I choose to. The original film wasn't perfect. Though at least it was a sign of it's time and was interested in pushing limits they has never been seen before as that was kind of the spirit of the 70's. Though more of a grindhouse aesthetic on display there. Here the film does it's best to jock and while gruesome doesn't have that homemade feel of the original. This is too polished. It hair feels like another contestant in a series of movies more about the victims then plot, characters or even scenes. As the films themselves seem to try to be character pieces about the victims trying to figure out a dilemma and an answer a watching them as they build the strength to do it.
The film tries to have grittiness but anytime it comes close to having a genuine difference it becomes glossy.
The nicest thing I can say about the film is that it is filmed well
Grade: D
No comments:
Post a Comment