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Film: I Spit On Your Grave II
Year: 2013
Director: Steven R. Monroe
Writer: Neil Elman and Thomas Fenton
Starring: Jemma Dallender, Yavor Baharov and Joe Absolom
Review:
This film begins in New York City at a small restaurant. The waitress is played by Jemma Dallender. After bringing out the order for a table she joins her friend who is looking over her portfolio. Dallender wants to be a model. Her friend tells her that she is beautiful and has potential, but she needs a more professionally shot portfolio. The problem is that it will cost a couple thousand dollars.
We learn that Dallender is from the Midwest and she is resourceful. She finds a flyer about free model portfolio pictures. She takes a number from it.
She comes home to her apartment building where we see her interact with the young maintenance man. She helps him by setting up a cleaver trap to catch a rat that is in the building.
Dallender calls the number that she picked up and talks to the guy about the possibility of having them take pictures. They know her name and are quite secretive. Despite that, she gets the address and goes to their studio.
She comes in and it is run by three brothers. The one she spoke with on the phone is played by Yavor Baharov. He is a little off and she seems to be quite entranced by Dallender. The one who takes the pictures and seems like their leader is played by Joe Absolom. The last is asleep is played by Aleksander Aleksiev.
Absolom picks a dress for Dallender and begins to take pictures. Absolom tells her that she needs to be sexier and maybe losing the dress would help that. Dallender freaks out and is not interested in doing that type of modeling. She storms out.
Later Baharov shows up at her apartment apologizes for his brothers and gives her a flash drive of the pictures they took of her. She thanks him and he is somewhat rude. He finally leaves.
Dallender goes to take her trash out and leaves her door open. She comes back and goes to bed. While she is asleep, pictures are heard being taken. This wakes up her and she sees that Barahov is in her apartment. She freaks out and he attacks her.
She hits him and gets away. She has to unlock all of her locks to get out and the time it takes he catches her. He brings her back inside and puts a rag in her mouth. He cuts a cord from a lamp. He has a switchblade and ties her up. There is a knock at the door.
The maintenance comes in and is stab in the stomach repeatedly by Baharov. As he is dying on the floor, Baharov rapes Dallender in front of him.
Baharov calls his brother and tells him that he needs help. The other two brothers show up to clean up some of the mess. Aleksiev is known as the partier of the group and he gives Dallender some drugs. She blacks out.
She wakes up in basement on a mattress, being raped by Aleksiev. She is handcuffed to a pole. Baharov comes in and stops him. Aleksiev is upset, saying she is a whore. When Dallender asks for something to drink, Aleksiev begins to urinate on her. This causes Baharov to freak out again, bringing Absolom in to break it up.
We get the impression that Baharov has a crush on Dallender. He brings her a dress and high heels. He un-cuffs her to get her ready and she attacks him. She gets free and runs down the street. She does not recognize any of the buildings and when she looks up at the words, they are all in Russian. She tries to ask for help and she finds a detective, he is played by George Zlatarev.
They are now in Bulgaria. Alatarev listens to her story, but he does not believe her. She will not go to the hospital and her story is quite fantastic. He believes she has been taking drugs and that is why she cannot remember. While they are talking, a woman from a woman’s shelter, played by Mary Stockley, enters. She tells her that the American embassy is just around the corner. She will take her to her home first for clothes.
It turns out that she is the sister of all the brothers from earlier. They call her ‘Mother’. They get her ready and a man shows up, Peter Silverleaf. He pays Stockley and then rapes Dallender. He tortures her with a cattle prod as he gets her ready. After that, the family decides to get rid of their prisoner. They dig a hole in the floor and bury her inside a box. The problem is the weight breaks through and she is freed in a tunnel underneath.
She steals from a church and its priest; he is played by Valentine Pelka. Her wants to help her, but she does not trust anyone anymore. Dallender learns the tunnel, has clothes and eats what she can. She finds the embassy, stares at it, but walks away. She goes back to the church and leaves the bible open that Pelka gave her. He looks at it to see that the page it is open to says ‘Vengeance will be mine’.
Dallender begins her revenge on the family and those that have wronged her. Will she be able to get them all? Zlaterev knows Pelka and they both want to help her. Will they be able to before it is too late? Can they stop her before she loses too much of her humanity?
What I really like about this one and the first two (original and remake) is that they take wholesome, pure women and they strip that away forcefully. We do feel bad for this woman and what happens to her. She has morals and is a good person, but this film really shows that if you wrong someone in the right way, prepare to feel the consequences. I also liked that she was in New York, drugged and then she wakes up in Bulgaria. That added something to this one that the others do not have, in that she just cannot go home. She is in a foreign country.
What I did not like about this one is it too way too long to get to the revenge section. I think the build up was good and the attacks on her were paced right. There is too much between her being attacked and her getting them back. I also was not as impressed with the killing scenes in this one. They are not as elaborate and they take too long to either kill them or are rushed.
If you like the original or the remake, I would say to give this one a viewing. It is not the best, but still entertaining. The subject matter is horrible, but it is a case in which most will agree with what she is doing. The story is deeper than the original too and I like that fact about it. The concept of her being smuggled out of the US was really good. My problem was with pacing and with how forced some of the deaths were. Still I would say worth a viewing if you are into this type of horror film.
My Rating: 5 out of 10