Abstract
In order to illustrate the shifts between the classic and revisionist cycles of the genre, this chapter compares two canonical rape-revenge films with their recent remakes: The Last House on the Left (Wes Craven, 1972/ Dennis Iliadis, 2009) and I Spit on Your Grave (Meir Zarchi, 1978/Steven R. Monroe, 2010).1 As canonical texts with both contemporary remakes and their own ongoing cult status, these films attest to the enduring relevance and popularity of the rape-revenge genre.2 This chapter identifies key generic elements of rape-revenge instituted by these texts and uses the comparison between original and remake as a barometer of the genre’s continuities and changes. Later chapters delve into the diversity and the complexities of the revisionist genre—its more marginal, hybrid, and transnational manifestations—but I begin in this first chapter with the proposition that these films are the prototypical, or definitional, texts for the (Western) rape-revenge genre and, as such, can be used to elucidate the central features and issues of the genre.
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Notes
For example, think of the characters played by Bruce Willis in Die Hard 4.0 (Len Wiseman, 2007)
and Sin City (Frank Miller and Robert Rodriguez, 2005),
Arnold Schwarzenegger in Collateral Damage (Andrew Davis, 2002)
and Commando (Mark L. Lester, 1985),
Liam Neeson in Rob Roy (Michael Caton-Jones, 1995)
and Taken (Pierre Morel, 2008),
and John Travolta in The General’s Daughter (Simon West, 1999).
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© 2014 Claire Henry
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Henry, C. (2014). Remaking Rape-Revenge: The Last House on the Left (1972/2009) and I Spit on Your Grave (1978/2010). In: Revisionist Rape-Revenge. Palgrave Macmillan, New York. https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137413956_2
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137413956_2
Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, New York
Print ISBN: 978-1-349-49016-5
Online ISBN: 978-1-137-41395-6
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