Movie Reviews for Writers: I Spit on Your Grave (or Day of the Woman)

 

I have to be honest with you. I didn't even remember that this one featured a writer until I saw it pop up on a list of horror movies about writers. And even then it didn't refresh my memory until I re-watched the flick a few days ago. 

That said, I have to admit that I enjoyed the excuse to watch this disturbing (and yes, exploitative -- after all, it's a female empowerment flick with a lustful booty shot on the cover) flick again. I know it's not everyone's cup of tea. Heck, it's not mine, but it's a master class in when to skirt that line between just enough and too much in order to enhance the plot at the risk of becoming gratuitous. And trust me, it does become gratuitous, but never at the expense of the story. It's just that dark and grimy and sleazy a story -- which is of course what makes it simultaneously compelling and repulsive. 

The plot: Jennifer Hills leaves the city to work on her novel in a cabin in the country. While there, she catches the eyes of a group of hillbilly thugs who rape her and leave her for dead. In classic slasher fashion, she gets revenge. As a plot, it's about as basic as it gets. 

For writers, there's still something here for us within that trope of the revenge slasher. 

The Need to Get Away from Distractions

We all tend to have a place that for us is "The Place To Write Best." It may be our office that we've decorated with our favorite posters, artwork, toys, knick-knacks, and/or curios. It may be the local coffee shop, our kitchen table, or a laptop stand set up on our screened-in porch. For others of us we need to get away to really relax and write to our fullest potential, like Jennifer does here. 

Matthew: Oh, are you a writer?

Jennifer: Mm-hmm.

Matthew: And you're gonna write a book here?

Jennifer: My first novel. I've written many short stories.

I tend to have this malady as well. I write best when I can fully pull away and spend a few days at my late Meme's house. With no Wi-Fi or phone or TV, I can devote time to writing without distractions. 

I could write more about this, but I've already covered it in several reviews so I won't beat that dead horse. 

Let's move on, shall we?

Characters Become Real to Us

As writers, we tend to know our characters deeply, perhaps more deeply than the real-life people around us. Of course, this is only possible because we've created them, but it's true nonetheless. Sometimes, they even become almost real to us, or at least real in our minds. 

When talking with Matthew, the delivery boy from the local grocer, Jennifer shares:

Matthew: Do you live here alone?

Jennifer: All alone with Mary Selby.

Matthew: Mary? Mary... is she in there?

Jennifer: Mary's right here. She's a fictional name. She's the Ieading character in a story I'm going to write here.

To Jenny, Mary wasn't just a character. She was a sort of roommate. 

For me, characters are more tenants, renting out space in my mind. They live there at least for the duration of the story I'm working on, but often longer. Such is the case with Rick Ruby and his love interest Evelyn. They have a permanent room in the Chez Taylor, and I think about them often, even when I'm not working on stories for the Rick Ruby books. 

Then other characters come and go with the stories and don't stay for long, but only stick around as needed and then quietly run off during the night. But they are no less real than the others. They exist and they take up space in my life. 

Never Heard of You

No doubt you get this one a lot, particularly when you mention (whether pressed for it or not) you are a writer. It often comes out as the less rude, "Have you written anything I might have heard of?" instead of the "I never heard of you." But the intention is the same. Your worth as a writer is only as good as your breadth of sales. You are judged not on your stories and your words but on your ability to market your books or your ability to land a big contract with a Big 5 publishing house. 

While Matthew and Jenny are talking at the beginning of the movie, they have this exchange:

Matthew: You must be famous. What's your last name?

Jennifer: Hills. It's okay if you've never heard of me. All my stories were published in women's magazines. 

Matthew: I don't read 'em.

It sounds like Jennifer has had this conversation before and she knows how to nip it in the bud. 

It can be daunting though to have your worth as a storyteller equated to sales figures and how many bookstores you're featured in the windows of -- or even worse, based on how many movies have been made from your books (particularly when meeting non-readers). 

Stories Echo Our Reality

This is one we just can seem to get away from -- like it or not, bits and pieces of our lives and the people around us creep into our work. While working at the cabin, Jenny has a voiceover from part of her novel in progress. 

"Chapter 8 -- page one. Finally, after weeks of self-doubt and much deliberation, she embarked on a temporary Ieave of absence from everything... that... that... formed the fabric of her life -- the big city... her job, her friends --"

Ignoring the fact that most of the writing that actually happens in movies about writers tends to be lackluster and cliche-riddled, it can't be denied that even though Jenny is writing about her protagonist Mary, she's actually writing about herself. Not only Mary is experiencing self-doubt and deliberation. Not only is Mary taking a temporary leave of absence from everything that formed the fabric of her life. Jennifer is doing those things too. In fact, it's likely that if Jennifer wasn't doing them, Mary wouldn't be doing them either. 

Sometimes these bits of reality sneak in via tiny cracks -- a friend's weird turn of the lip when feeling shy or a tell when someone is nervous. Other times they crash right through the door wholesale, as big as life, as a fully formed character, much like Mary does with Jenny. Sometimes they even become a sort of wish-fulfillment, and that's when a character is in danger of becoming the oft-vilified Mary Sue or Marty Stu. 

Wow. I'm kind of surprised there was this much in this little exploitation slasher. That's a lot more content than I expected from such a by-the-numbers revenge horror movie.