Years before Fargeat directed the incredible SAW team favorite The Substance, she directed Revenge. Let me just start by saying that this is a rape-revenge movie, and that’s not going to work for some people. However, this is a completely different beast than The Last House on the Left or I Spit on Your Grave. Inspired by movies like Kill Bill or Rambo, this is an action hero movie, and the victim is the hero.
The story follows Jen, an American woman on a trip with her married boyfriend Richard. Once his friends show up things get tense fast, and it becomes clear that they’re both attracted to Jen. After one of them forces himself on her violently, Richard resolves the situation by killing Jen, shoving her off a cliff where she is impaled by a dead tree. Only, she doesn’t die.
This movie steers clear from the exploitative tones of its predecessors. Fargeat said herself in interviews that she’d never seen I Spit on Your Grave, and said to the Financial Times that she didn’t want Jen to be “screaming and suffering for the whole movie, trying to survive.” Jen’s body is shot in a seductive and lewd way when she is in sight of the other characters, showing their sexual fascination with her body. When she is alone though, you almost forget about those scenes. Jen’s transformation into action hero is a gradual one, as she problem-solves her way out of her dead tree impalement and finds her way to her first murder. It’s this journey though that makes it a truly satisfying watch, as we watch her track down these men and take them down in gruesome ways.
So much of what’s perfected in The Substance is here too, particularly the body horror. The assault scene itself is fairly tame (though there’s no question of what is happening), but the horror of what happens to Jen’s body and particularly the bodies of those who dared to mess with her is grisly. Buckets of gore fill scenes to the point where you will ask yourself, “How the hell are these people still alive?” My advice? Just roll with it. Like The Substance, this movie ends with one giant gore fest that has no grounding in reality. It’s honestly best if just turn your brain off and enjoy the wild ride.
For fans of The Substance, this is a great time. So many of the crazy shots that made The Substance so interesting are being played with here, and the cast does a great job of making you believe it. Best of all, it’s on Tubi, so there’s no reason not to stream it. Definitely check this one out!
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