Review of I Spit on Your Grave 2 (2013) by Solutions10 — 22 Oct 2013

Since I like movies that push the envelope as hard as they can (and I've never been able to see a movie as anything but actors on a screen, so I never get scared or even grossed out--it's always just props and stages to me), movies like these are up my alley.

Not bad, but not particularly good, either. Almost identical to the 2010 remake, but with a change of setting and new antagonists. Katie (wasn't the first girl called Katie, too?) is a carbon copy of the previous anti-hero, even to the point where, during the revenge part of things, she acts practically the same way, feeding back lines to her captors and such.

I was disappointed when she emerged in the Church, began reading the Bible, but then that was the end of the significance of that. I was sort of hoping for a different theme to the killings, even a sort-of medieval, religious-history-based one.

Nothing of the sort happens, sadly. Sometimes what Katie says doesn't really make sense, like when she says, "They used to treat mental illness with shock therapy..." They still do, you moron, just not quite the same way you were doing it (read up on ECT if you feel like being smarter than everyone else about that nightmarishly-portrayed treatment that isn't anything like how it's ever been portrayed in film, and genuinely works and is painless).

Then there's the thing with the cop dude, whatever his name was. What was the point of his character? All he does is follow her into the sewers, then does things that are astonishingly unrealistic (why the hell did he shoot the totally-unarmed and bound guy when her head is right next to his? The heck was that about? What was even the point of it, if only for the audience's sake?), and the priest's role is apparently just to mention that hey, someone might be seeking vengeance because she left that part open while she was reading the Bible.

Literally, that's it, but it was just thrown in without any follow-up. Kinda lame. The other characters had virtually nothing to them, either. What was with that guy with the shocker? He just does his thing and we wait for him to get it served back to him.

I mean, can we at least find some reason to feel something for the bad guys? Can they at least have a reason, or anything? Otherwise it just feels like a puppet show with props and a lot of fake blood.

I like connecting my characters to the violence on-screen, which is what good horror/shocker films do. Even "A Serbian Film" had that much done with its characters. I will admit, though, I laughed at the guy's testicles literally popping open like cracked eggs onto the floor.

Sometimes inadvertently funny, never shocking, never surpasses the original in any meaningful way. There's no reason to watch it twice; it's not like you missed anything important. Still, what a waste with the Church scene she was briefly a part of.

They did literally nothing with it, and I was hoping for some sort of creativity in the revenge kills, but nope. Standard stuff, and even the same style and characters. Surprise me once, or something.