Movie Review: Revenge (2018)

Rape revenge films were a staple of ’70s and ’80s exploitation cinema. Generally, they weren’t too respected, and the ones that people still know of today, people generally know of because of their shock value and controversy (ie I Spit on Your Grave). Even the few good ones like Last House on the Left were a far cry from being feminist.

This movie, however, is somewhat of a revelation. It’s brutal, disgusting, and difficult to watch, but it’s also entirely compelling, and brought to us by a female writer/director in Coralie Fageat.

The movie’s feminist approach really doesn’t change the plot around too much from a typical rape revenge movie, but it’s the small details that make this movie feminist. You hate the villains as much as any villains you’ve seen in film before, even though they do have some humanity. And you end up liking the protagonist, Jen (Matilda Lutz) as much as anyone in film. You want to see her succeed.

Jen starts out the movie as certainly sexually promiscuous, and dating a married man in Richard (Kevin Janssens).

She’s not punished for her promiscuity so much as she becomes the victim of a man’s inability to read her. She’s then left for dead in the desert, with three men including her rapist and Richard to come back for her and dispose of the body.

She isn’t dead, of course, and she soon goes on her revenge mission.

Our sympathy is with her all the way. The film presents it more as a continued fight for survival than any kind of attempt at vengeance, despite the title.

The film is incredibly difficult to watch, though not for its subject matter of sexual violence, but for the gore in the non-rape scenes. The rape scene is handled pretty tastefully, as most of it is left off screen, and with a character reason to leave it off screen.

While the movie is definitely not for the squeamish, there is some very good filmmaking here, and it’s a very promising directorial debut.

Rating: 8/10