The thing that made I Spit on Your Grave[1] more than torture porn [before that was even a subgenre] is the novelty. There aren’t many lady revenge stories, and fewer that are violent in the way that dude revenge stories are violent. As such, it has both the typically female strength storyline in which a woman who has faced, uh, let’s say adversity is able to rise up from circumstances that would destroy a man[2], and then it follows that up with the direct, bloody revenge that has, as I said, been a traditionally male-dominated arena.

Also, that direct, bloody revenge is earned, and earned well. “No jury would convict her” is what it said on the posters, as I recall.

I’ve discussed its remake elsewhere, with the verdict of “largely unnecessary”. And now we have I Spit on Your Grave 2, which dares to ask the question: what if Day of the Woman but crossed with Hostel? The answer being, of course, that formulaic torture porn, however bidirectional, misses the point entirely.

I am disappointed in you, makers of this movie. (I cannot even say “makers of this sequel”, because the only thing the movies have in common is the one sentence summary they share. My verdict here is downgraded from unnecessary to shameless.)

[1] aka Day of the Woman, and except for the fact that it’s less eye-catching and I would have been less likely to have seen it lo those many years ago, I wish that had stayed the title. Because it sells its theme better that way.
[2] Whether this stereotype is accurate is not in the scope of my point, although I’m not here to argue against it.