Today marks twenty-five years since the U.S. release of Gary Sherman’s Poltergeist III, a film that has been derided far too much over the last quarter century. It bombed at the box office before terrifying a generation of small-screen viewers (specifically, my generation), and is most infamous for being released four months after the death of its lead actress, Heather O’Rourke.
An unbelievably talented child star who would have
evolved into a truly great adult star, Heather O’Rourke was so synonymous with the role of "Carole Anne Freeling" that her tragic death before filming was complete seems almost
like a ghastly extension of this uniquely nightmarish film. Although savaged by critics upon its initial
release, I assume that it has since earned itself a place high in the ranks of 80s cult horror films. It’s as frightening a picture as Gary Sherman’s earlier
80s gems, the darkly comic voodoo masterpiece Dead and Buried and the gritty prostitution thriller Vice Squad. The cast is uniformly exceptional, especially the pitch-perfect
performances by its two late stars. Heather O’Rourke was at her most controlled
and impressive by the third film, and once again Zelda Rubinstein expertly walks the fine line between genius and camp as
filmdom’s most famous medium: the legendary “Tangina”. Despite its stellar performances and effectiveness as a relentlessly claustrophobic and surreal horror film, it does have its fair share of unintentionally hilarious shortcomings. This is best illustrated in
this priceless (negative) review of the film by the late, great Gene Siskel
& Roger Ebert, arguably one of the funniest segments ever broadcast on their classic TV series.
Poltergeist III was a film that I did not see until my
life-changing Summer of 1991. For years I’d only been
allowed to either gaze at the 80s horror movie covers at the video store or “settle” for classic movies of the 30s and 40s like Bride of Frankenstein and I Walked With A Zombie. But then one day near the end of the third grade my Dad
told me he would let me
see Alfred Hitchcock’s Psychoif I put more effort into Little League. (I was
never one for sports, so movie privileges were often an incentive during my thankfully brief baseball chapter.) I can’t remember if he showed it to me or I watched it by myself, as
I most remember subsequently watching it over and over that summer. I was not frightened, but I LOVED everything about it,
and consider it a great blessing that the film which birthed modern horror should be my own starting point. Viewing Poltergeist and its sequels followed shortly
thereafter. Like Psycho, I watched the Poltergeist movies so many times that
summer that memories of the repeat viewings all absorb into one another. But unlike
Psycho, the Poltergeist movies freaked me out.
Two years later, my
wonderful 5th grade teacher, Mrs. Quinn, had everyone in class create our own magazines. My magazine was called Boston Entertainment, and was a mish-mash of
Entertainment Weekly and PremiereMagazine—literally. I spliced ads from both into my magazine, along with a few reviews by my favorite local film critic, James Verniere of The Boston Herald, with full credit of course. In
addition to the collage of cut-outs and capsule reviews, the
magazine contained a number of articles which I wrote myself, including this one about the future of the American horror film. I rediscovered this
“magazine” in my parents’ attic and thought I would share my favorite article in honor of Poltergeist III's 25th Anniversary and Boston Entertainment's 20th (!) anniversary. I still remember the urgency with which I
wrote it: as someone who aspired to make horror films, I felt that my own future was at stake. I wanted to insure that a
market would still exist when I was old enough to make my dreams come true, and
my fears in those dismal days of early 90s horror were all too valid. The
genre has come a long way since. But now corporate influence, economic turmoil, changing technology, and unprecedented piracy are all drowning out the voices of
independent filmmakers. Indeed, there is once again
reason for those of us pursuing a career in horror films to proceed with
caution. And so, without further adieu, here is another blast from my past, peppered with a bit of present-day commentary .
My lone foray into magazine publishing.
The Horror of
Horrors:
Will Scary Movies Be
Here For Us To Look
Back
On?
By
Robert Jeffrey
Have
you ever heard of “Jaws”? You probably have, because it IS a classic. Still,
have you ever heard of the movie “Leprechaun”? In my opinion, it is a true
horror, blending comedy and scary special effects to make it perfect, but just
the title probably sounds strange to you, although some people are familiar
with it. “Jaws” was a box office smash, but “Leprechaun” was out for less than
a week in Peabody.
Alas, I would never again rave on about Leprechaun
as much as I did at the age of eleven.
These
are just two examples of what people may realize is happening in theaters, or
may not care to notice. What is it that makes a horror movie popular? Is it
special effects, suspense, black humor, or a hip, cool style? The reason I
don’t mention a “foundation” such as a bestselling novel is because many
Stephen King movies, such as “The Dark Half”, are movies that are not only
bombs at the movies, but I don’t even consider most of them to be real horrors.
Sorry, I don't know why I was so mean to Stephen King adaptations! Worse yet, I hadn't even seen The Dark Half when I wrote this--and it's a GREAT movie.
Maybe
special-effects is the way to go. In the “Nightmare on Elm Street” series, part
three made forty-seven million (1987), and part four made forty-nine million
(1988). Both of these movies were the most popular of the “Nightmare” movies,
and these were both crammed with mind-boggling special effects. Still, other
movies like “Dr. Giggles” also had fairy gory special effects, but it didn’t
quite pack ‘em in the aisles.
I haven't seen Dr. Giggles since childhood, and it MIGHT be a terrible movie...
but, to this day, I still LOVE the ad campaign!
Maybe
it is a campy style. In the movie “Fright Night” which starred Fox 25 regulars
William Ragsdale of “Herman’s Head” and Amanda Bearse of “Married…With
Children”. I found this 1985 movie which was supposedly a hit at the ticket booths
to have real wit, suspense, comedy, some great FX, and camp. Yes, I found this
movie to have really cool style that most Stephen King horrors miss by a mile,
which made this one of my favorite, if not my very favorite, horror movies.
Still, some hated this movie, so don’t rely on modern gimmicks.
My #1 favorite scene in my #1 favorite vampire movie of all time.
(I think it's safe to say I still love Fright Night as much as I did at eleven.)
Maybe
it is suspense. Lots of suspense movies get better reviews by critics and make
more money at the box office than some horrors. Still, that doesn’t mean
horrors don’t have suspense. The classic “Jaws” was not only one of the biggest
(meaning made the most money) movies of all time, but it keeps audiences on the
edge of their seats. Another horror noted for its superb suspense was the
terrifying “Halloween”. Not only was the music in this just as bad as “Jaws”,
but its great acting by Jamie Lee Curtis (“My Girl”) and Donald Pleasance (The
1979 version of “Dracula”) and its plot that WAS creative at this time, the
movie is excellent.
The night I saw Halloween deserves its own blog post,
because it's been one of my biggest cinematic/life influences ever since.
As we
see, there are lots of good reasons to see a horror, but if you see a bad one,
the rest you’ll see will be bad too. With that in mind, here are the horrors
that I consider to be the best (although some have the gore that I don’t
usually like):
It would not be until the 6th grade that I saw most of the great American horror films--hence that pitiful list. But with the exception of Dr. Giggles and Leprechaun, I still LOVE those movies, and Wes Craven's A Nightmare On Elm Street remains my favorite horror movie of all.
Today marks thirty-five years since Dario Argento's Suspiria was released in the United States. It remains his most internationally lucrative and critically acclaimed film, despite or because of being a thematic and stylistic departure from the 'giallo' films that have made Dario Argento a filmmaking legend. I have written before about the role that Suspiria played in my life at the end of high school. This piece marks the last time that I wrote about it in college.
This was originally my final assignment for a class at
Emerson College that explored portrayals of the occult throughout cinematic history. The class was taught by Peg Aloi, the writer and film critic and my favorite professor. It was the summer of 2005, and I was working on an occult horror screenplay. In the midst of doing lots of research
for my own project, I took the class to expand knowledge for
my work and to introduce what I was finding to Professor Aloi and my
fellow students. Dario Argento’s Suspiria, one of my favorite movies of all
time, was part of the curriculum. But one particularly fascinating piece of
television history that I uncovered that summer was a 1989 broadcast of The
Oprah Winfrey Show that the class watched on the last day. It was about a horrific tragedy: the brutal murder
of Mark Kilroy, a young man on spring break in Mexico. The coverage in 1989,
however, suggested his death was the work of a global network of devil worshippers. In 2005, and particularly to a room full of Emerson College
students, the tone of the broadcast took on an amusing quality despite the
humorless subject matter. The part that seemed amusing was the “Satanic Panic” that
swept the nation in the 80s, and how dated it was two decades later. But I remember when those fears were too embedded in mainstream society to evoke laughs. Childhood memories of that disturbing cultural phenomenon were at the
root of both my screenplay and this essay.
Robert E. Jeffrey
MA405: Final Paper
Suspiria: Paving the Way for Hysteria
When Suspiria was unleashed upon American
audiences by 20th Century Fox in 1977, few could have predicted the
success enjoyed by its distributors or by famed Italian horror director Dario
Argento. At this point in time, Argento’s American success was distinctly
limited: he had had two U.S. successes in his 1970 debut thriller The Bird With the Crystal Plumage and 1975’s Profondo Rosso,
released in the U.S. as The Deep Red
Hatchet Murders. Both films were blockbusters in his native Italy. Additionally he had two other hit European thrillers and a successful Italian anthology show, all of which contributed to his budding European
reputation as “the Italian Hitchcock”. The release of 1977’s Suspiria marked a major turning point in
Argento’s career, and the change in direction proved enormously profitable. Suspiria was a massive success in
Europe, and became the first of a string of big hits for Dario Argento in Japan—preceding a 1978 re-release of his Profondo Rosso under
the title Suspiria 2! (Jones, "An Eye For Horror")
Following the huge
success of Twentieth Century Fox's The Omenin 1976, the
internationally lucrative Suspiria must have seemed
like a sure bet for a the studio to continue capitalizing on American
moviegoers’ fear of a Satanic influence over our everyday lives.
Indeed, Suspiria would go on to
become Dario Argento’s most widely released, heavily publicized, critically
acclaimed, and commercially successful film in the United States.
The first film in a planned trilogy, Fox was so pleased with Suspiria’s grosses that they co-financed the lavish sequel. Filmed in 1979 and released in a few international
territories in 1980, Dario Argento’s Infernowould be put on the backburner at Fox amidst a change of studio heads in
1980, making a limited theatrical appearance in the mid-1980s before quietly sliding
onto video shelves under Fox’s “Key Video” label. (Jones)
If the more densely scripted Inferno had been
given a proper U.S.
theatrical release by Fox in 1980, it could very well have echoed the success
of Suspiria, in addition to enlightening viewers to the actual meaning of the themes and content of Suspiria. Inferno reveals that the mythology of its predecessoractually had little to do with Christianity's image of 'the Devil'. But the misconceptions
inevitably taken from Suspiria’s limited narrative have come to define how most viewers will interpret it: as an artfully crafted horror movie about “witchcraft-as-Satanism”. Part
of the success of Suspiria was in
hinting at the existence of Satanic cults embedded in the least conspicuous pockets of society, a fear that had heightened considerably since the release of Roman Polanski's Rosemary’s Babyin 1968. In the that followed Suspiria, that fear would
heighten in the United States, manifesting itself in a new yet frighteningly familiar way in the American cultural landscape.
In the ten years following the
release of Suspiria, America’s interest in the occult in
the 1970s turned into a fear of the occult in the 1980s. There could have been
any number of reasons for this rapid turnaround. Many would credit the two-term
run of conservative President Ronald Reagan and the emergence of “the religious Right”.
Once could cite a collective parental/generational response, triggered by the bloodshed dominating movie theaters packed with teenagers or the popularity of heavy metal music, condemned by parents’ groups for its supposed references to blood, murder, and the
Devil himself. I would argue that these factors merely
strengthened the pull on the collective American psyche of fears already planted by paranoiac films of the 1970s--most especially Rosemary’s Baby, The Exorcist,
and The Omen. Despite being a success, Dario
Argento’s Suspiria was never as widely viewed in America
as the aforementioned three films. Nonetheless, I would argue that Suspiria, more than any other 70s occult
horror film, set the standard of primal terror that would fuel what historians generally refer to as the “Satanic Panic” of the 1980s.
Although the roots of the 'Satanic Panic' began with the dozens of reports of ritualized child molestations going on at daycare centers across the country, the origin of the brand of “panic”
that I associate with Dario Argento’s vision was galvanized, if not born, in
the small town of Northport, Long
Island. There, in the summer of 1984, seventeen year old Ricky Kasso and his friend Jimmy Troiano were arrested for the horrific stabbing death of their classmate, Gary Lauwers. Although the crime was primarily
related to use of the hard drug PCP, Ricky Kasso’s interest in the Devil, as
manifested in “black metal” music, became a paramount issue in the case. Says
then-and-current Newport
police chief Bob Howard, “The press release alluded to the "Satanic cult”.
A Satanic cult never existed. There was some misinformation that went out. But
you can't stop the press. The press release that went out caused a frenzy which
I've never seen or have seen since” (“Satan in the Suburbs”).
Perhaps the most horrific and defining cult murder of the
Satanic Panic scare was the murder of Texas college student Mark Kilroy, and the
discovery of his and twelve other dismembered corpses in a mass grave in Matamoros, Mexico. Kilroy was kidnapped on
spring break in 1989 and brutally tortured and murdered by a drug
lord cum "black magic" practitioner Adolfo de Jesus Constanzo and his
followers/crime partners, all as a means of magically attaining protection and immunity from
police and fellow drug traffickers. Although Constanzo's practice came from a
family tradition of an extreme interpretation of the Palo Mayombe
"voodoo" tradition, early reports, naturally, claimed Satanism (Newton).
One of the most defining time capsules of this era was
a historically relevant broadcast of "The Oprah Winfrey Show" on
May 1, 1989, in
which Winfrey interviews one guest in particular would become infamous among
critics of the controversial "Satanic Ritual Abuse" syndrome. That
“anti-Satanist” would be Patricia Pulling, best known as the founder of B.A.D.D.,
“Bothered About Dungeons and Dragons”, which she formed in response to the
tragic suicide of her son, an event she blamed on the deadly occult influence
of the Dungeons and Dragons role-playing game. (Stackpole)
On
the broadcast, Pulling offered a list of “warning signs” for parents of children
susceptible to becoming involved in Satanic acts.
In teenagers you look for obsessive behavior in some heavy
metal music, not all. Obsessive behavior of kids that like gory slasher films:
Poltergeist type films, Friday the 13th. If they have an obsession
with this, an obsession with evil, if you start to see the signs and symbols of
things that you don't recognize..... if the child actually hates
God....drawing pictures of death, dying, dismemberment mutilation....this is
sick, and they need help. A lot of professionals are passing this off as a fad
they will pass through. and many of them are not passing through. Many are
dying, and killing other people. (“Oprah”)
[Patricia Pulling] has, willfully or
negligently, manufactured reports concerning suicides and murders related to
games and Satanism. She has promoted individuals who are, at the very least, in
need of serious psychiatric help to deal with their emotional and psychological
problems. She has repeatedly represented herself as an “expert witness”
concerning games of which she knows little or nothing. Pat Pulling and her
allies regularly conduct “cult crime seminars” at locations across the country.
They are offered for police and teachers at between $100 and $300 a head, [and]
the anti-Satanists profit greatly from giving the seminars. These are the
seminars in which Pat Pulling distributes a questionnaire that, if used in
accordance with the instructions, will prove virtually anyone to be a Satanist.
These are the seminars at which “occult symbol” hand-outs are distributed,
including things like “the Star of David” and at which any non-Christian
religion is branded “Satanism.”
Many supposed victims of Satanic ritual abuse are widely believed to be likely candidates for childhood sexual abuse, occurring at a time when the human imagination is running so rampant that the abuse may have stored
itself in the victims’ subconscious under the guise of being a Satanic rite
(Holmes 3). This theory is prefaced in Suspiria by the character of Dr.
Mandel (Udo Kier) when he addresses the disappearance of Sara (Stefania Cassini) and her
hysterical beliefs in a witch cult hunting her down.
“She had a nervous breakdown after her mother's death and
she came to me for treatment. After she got better again, we remained friends.
But lately she was upset about some notions put into her head by a friend
of hers. They were kind of wild ideas. She had discovered that the Tanz
Akademie was founded in 1895 by a certain Helena Markos, a Greek immigrant, and
that the local people believed her to be a witch. That really got Sarah's
imagination going. Madame Markos died in a fire. That's all there is as far as
witchcraft is concerned. The school was taken over by her favorite pupil, the
study of the occult was abandoned, and soon the place became the famous dance
academy....As a believer in the material world and a psychologist to boot, I'm
convinced that the current spread of belief in magic and the occult is part of
mental illness. Bad luck isn't brought by broken mirrors, but by broken minds.”
Although “mental illness” might be
an overstated response to the cultural interest in the occult during the 1970s,
Dr. Mandel hits on a very potent point about the time period: people were looking for something
to scapegoat. Associating ill fate with the Devil was recognized as
“medieval thinking” throughout the progressively modernized 20th century, but in
the wake of Rosemary’s Baby and, even more
so, The Exorcist, belief in the
existence of Satan and, more tellingly, his role on Earth, was becoming increasingly popular in the mainstream American culture. This was particularly evident throughout the
1980s as evidenced by books and TV specials on the subject
and a revolving cast of authors and frequent TV/radio guests making frequent media appearances during the so-called Satanic Panic. The common fear of witchcraft in the 1980s was prophetically illustrated in Suspiria by the character of
Professor Milius (Rudolf Schundler) when he describes to the protagonist, Suzy (Jessica Harper), what he learned from writing his defining book, Paranoia and Magic.
[Witches] are malefic. Negative and destructive.
Their knowledge of the art of the occult brings them tremendous powers. They
can change the course of events, and people's lives. But only to do harm. Their
goal is to accumulate great personal wealth, but that can only be achieved by
injury to others. They can cause suffering, sickness, and even the death of
those that, for whatever reason, have offended them. A woman becomes queen of her
coven if her magic is 100 times more powerful than the rest of the coven,
which is like a serpent. Its strength rests with its leader, which is likes it
head. A coven deprived of its leader is like a headless cobra: harmless.
Skepticism is the natural reaction of people today, but magic is ever present.
Magic is everywhere, and all over the world, it's a recognized fact, always.
Patricia Pulling could not have said it any better herself. Indeed, this defining exchange is the most blatant misrepresentation of witchcraft-as-Satanism in the entire film. But a more careful deconstruction of this classic scene—specifically, with the aid of Argento’s view of the Suzy character—offers a very different interpretation. “[Suzy] does not know she is a white witch, but she has a great strength that drives back everything. Indeed, when she meets the professor it is the moment in which she begins to realize. She can fight because of her strength” (Locane, “Dark Dreams”). Of course, it would be virtually impossible to decipher this from what seems a straightforward condemnation of witchcraft in any form.
Prior to 1977, serious Satanic horror in America was
generally packaged for TV (Look What's Happened to Rosemary's Baby,The Devil's Daughter), EuroHorror imports (The Antichrist, The Devil's Nightmare, To the Devil....a Daughter), hardcore
porn (The Devil in Miss Jones, Through the Looking Glass), and, most commonly, prime drive-in meat (Race the Devil, The Brotherhood of Satan). Satanic horror films that came in the wake of Rosemary's Baby typically aimed to be frightening in a campy, cathartic, "fun time at the movies" manner, employing tried-and-true horror techniques. Dario Argento's Suspiria demonstrates a more diverse array of genre influences: the warped world of German Expressionism, the gothic chills of
silent American horror, and the subtly insidious anti-witch scares of Victor Fleming's The Wizard of Oz and Walt Disney's Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (“Suspiria
25”, Jones 83). Ultimately, I
would argue that the very effectiveness of Suspiria is why it serves as an
inevitable precursor to the Satanic Panic. The film exists on a primal level, affects on a primal level, and stays with the viewer on a primal level. When looking back on Suspiria, one consciously remembers the striking barrage of jarring sound and vivid color even more than the prevalent element of witchcraft. As such, one could be
frightened by ideas presented in the film years later, with no specific
recollection as to where such fears originate from.
Michael Brandon,
star of Argento’s 1973 thriller Four Flies on Grey Velvet, shared with UK viewers of the Channel 4
documentary Dario Argento: An Eye For Horrora very specific insight into Argento’s creative process as a
screenwriter. “Dario told me he has dreams, or
nightmares, and that's how the story comes into being. He would write down the
nightmare. And it would become the script.” (“Eye for Horror”) In Suspiria, the
nightmare world explored by Suzy Banyon may very well have echoed Argento’s own
investigations into the world of magic in preparation for Suspiria. During
this time, he and wife/co-writer Daria Nicolodi traveled throughout the “Magic
Triangle”, a (supposedly) supernaturally active point where France, Germany, and
Switzerland meet (“Suspiria: 25th Anniversary”), and met with
many Pagans as well as alleged worshippers of the Devil (Jones 72). Says the
couple’s daughter, international star Asia Argento, “he
needs somebody, a feminine character, to represent his curiosity--of life, and
danger, and all those things”. ("Eye For Horror")
Dario Argento grew up and achieved success in the most Catholicized nation in the world. Could he have been, perhaps subconsciously,
combatting his own innermost fears about the world of witchcraft, a world that at
once utterly fascinated and completely terrified him? Pop-rock extraordinaire
Keith Emerson, who composed the score to Inferno,
has offered that “Dario was probably more scared of the films that he made than
his audience was. I've seen the guy just shaking watching his own film” (“Eye
for Horror”). American horror legend John Carpenter, a friend and colleague of
Dario’s, points out “the story he tells over and over again” as the foundation
of Argento’s fear of the unknown. “There was a hallway at the back of his
house, and when he had to go to sleep at night, for whatever reason, when he
would walk there, he would imagine these things behind the doorways in this
hallway. By the time he got to his room he was in complete terror” (“Eye for
Horror”). Another genre titan, George A. Romero, puts in his own take on how these fears are passed on to audiences around the globe, infecting
the world with manifested realities of Argento's private nightmares. “I think when
Dario gets an idea he is basically trying to communicate either a kind of
horror or an allegory about certain human behavior. He's like Van Gogh, someone who says this is the
way I want it to be, and this is the world. Take from it what you will” (“Eye
for Horror”). As the Satanic Panic stormed through the American 80s, it was
clear that the country had taken Argento’s view of the world very literally
indeed.
WORKS CITED
Holmes, Dr. Leonard. “What the Hell is Satanic Ritual
Abuse”. About.com
Most of my favorite movies are centered around a female protagonist with whom I identify on some personal level, and I Spit On Your Graveis no exception. It is only underlined by the fact that the heroine is a writer who seeks her inspiration from being alone in the woods of New England.I can’t remember when exactly I first heard of I Spit On Your Grave (aka Day of the Woman), but I remember where I
first saw the iconic video cover: at the dearly departed Gold Star Video Store in Rowley, Massachusetts. The striking image and arresting tagline left me fascinated from childhood onward.
My unabashed love of this much-maligned film stems from the sixth grade. That's when a close friend of mine, a surrogate older sister to whom I am indebted for much of my film education, heaped praise upon the film. She and several of her female co-workers at a New England hair salon had a fondness forI Spit On Your Grave that was in stark contrast to Roger Ebert's legendaryhatred of the film, and this always amused me. For years I would press her for details on the film, until I was old enough to see it. After all, the tape at Gold Star was stamped with an 'X' rating. I finally saw it when I was seventeen. My Mom called me while she was out
grocery shopping, and I asked her if she’d swing by the video store and pick it up
for me, which she did. It only added further proof that she exists in the category of “Coolest
Mom Ever”.
I was terrified to
watch it because I had a fear that it could feel like a snuff film, or a rape
fantasy, or a trip to Hell that might leave me permanently scarred. I was
permanently affected by the film, but not in a traumatic way. Despite being a
peaceful person by nature, I fucking loved watching the heroine, Jennifer, seduce-and-slaughter a quartet of soulless misogynists.
Right away, I began showing the film to women in my
life, starting with an art teacher in high school who (thankfully!) loved it.
That same year I used it as the basis for an oral report in my American law class. I had planned to write about women who kill the men who rape them, but unable to draw upon proper resources at the time. So it ended up being a presentation on rape statistics and what my classmates should do if they were ever to be victimized. I fondly recall my female teacher privately commending
me for my audacity, as all of my classmates at St. John’s Prep were male.
Aside
from inciting a visceral “KILL THEM ALL!” reaction in the audience, I Spit On Your Grave offers an unsubtle warning against the dangers of gender division. Jennifer is not human to the four rapists in the film because she is
not a man, and they in turn feel no remorse about raping or killing her or any woman. They view all females as "the other".Their perspective is a sadistically extreme version of how young males are taught to interact with young females in the schoolyard. I Spit On Your Grave
demonstrates the violent extremes of what can happen when we implicitly or
explicitly teach one gender to look at the other gender as different creatures entirely. I was born a homosexual male, but I have always viewed males and females as very nearly identical. I am fundamentally and relentlessly opposed to gender labels, and I suspect that Meir Zarchi might feel the same way. Some may describe the bloody revenge that Jennifer takes on her attackers as somehow masculine, suggesting she has abandoned her femaleness. But I would say she is fully embracing her Goddess within....and bettering all of humanity in the process.
I Spit On Your Grave provided the material for the final paper of an ethics class I took in my second year of college. I never got a letter grade, but I gathered that the professor hated it when my grade for the semester turned out to be lower than I expected. I'm not sure if it was because the professor so intensely disagreed with my perspective or because the professor felt it was poorly written. I'm not surprised either way: it's honestly just a love letter to Meir Zarchi for crafting one of my all-time favorite films and to Camille Keaton for bringing it to life like no other actor ever could have.
Robert Jeffrey
12/17/01
Ethics in Literature: Final Paper
Meir Zarchi’s 1977
masterpiece I Spit On Your Grave is a film of stark violence and
uncompromising brutality. It is also a relentlessly intrusive movie, one which
boldly forces the audience to rethink its feelings about law and justice and
morality, and to question the battle between human instincts and intellectual
sensibility. It does not ask questions, it provokes them. It is for this reason
that the film has been seeped in controversy since its release. Yet it is also
for this reason that a quarter of a century later it is still analyzed and
scrutinized. The moral dilemma at the heart of the film is relevant in any
era, and never before or since has the dilemma been portrayed so simply and explicitly.
It does not explore an isolated situation, but rather a universal way of
thinking and rethinking, and as such, it will always be ripe content for
ethical debate.
Jennifer
is an intelligent, successful, single New York author who leaves the chaos of
Manhattan to find solace in the country. She rents a lakeside house in a small,
rustic town (never specified as Connecticut or upstate New York) so she can
write her first novel. One day, while sunning herself in a canoe, her boat is
lassoed by several local men in a passing motorboat. The men drag her boat to
shore, and corner her in an isolated spot in the woods where they meet up with
two other men. The men rape her, and then disappear. In a state of shock,
Jennifer walks through the woods, attempting to find her home. In the woods,
the men are waiting for her, and again overpower and rape her. When she finally
returns to her home, the men are already there, and for the third and last time
she is beaten and gang raped. The men leave, and one of them is sent back into
the house to slit the throat of an already virtually lifeless woman. The man
who is sent back cannot commit this final act, and so he smears Jennifer’s
blood on the knife and leaves, claiming to have killed her.
After
the hours-long experience of being tortured, Jennifer spends days isolated and
silent. When she finally leaves her secluded property, it is to go to a local
Church; there, she kneels before an altar and asks for forgiveness for the acts
she is about to commit. She then proceeds to take revenge against the men who
have destroyed her. She calls upon Matthew, the man who was sent to kill her,
and she seduces and then hangs him. She lures Johnny, the “leader” of the
quartet, back to her house, where she castrates him and locks him into a room
to bleed to death. When Stanley and Andy, the remaining rapists, head towards
Jennifer’s house on their boat, Jennifer is waiting for them. In a final
sequence set entirely on water, she mutilates one man with an axe, leaving him
to drown. When only one rapist is left, crying for his life as he
treads water, she turns the boat motor onto his chest. She speeds away on her
boat, an ambiguous expression on her face, at which point the movie abruptly
begins to roll credits.
Once
the audience has moved past its initial shock and any prejudices towards the
crucially graphic depiction of violence in the film, they can begin to question
the issues that linger in their mind. Should Jennifer have taken such brutal
revenge? Does the excruciating rape that the audience was witness to justify
her actions? Will her executions prevent similar crime? Were the men deserving
of death, or merely victims of their own upbringing? And in the end, did it
bring her satisfaction to equate their crimes with crimes of her own? For the
purpose of this assignment, it is necessary to disregard the potential effect
that the film itself could have on a philosopher’s opinions, and to base their
assessment of the situation on the grounds of summary alone and how it would
filter through their own theories.
Immanuel Kant
believed that "persons" were the most capable creatures in the universe. His
definition of a “person” was not simply restricted to humans-in fact, he was
considering the possibility of aliens-for it referred to a creature’s mental
ability as opposed to his physical composition. A person is a creature capable
of reason, and who can use this reason to strive for The Good Will. The Good
Will is evident in a person’s action that suggests a will to be good, a desire
to be good, and an embracement of possible consequences if such consequences
are necessary to achieve good. Kant felt that The Good Will was the only
“limitless good”. Everything else that could be deemed ‘good’ has limitation,
for such so-called virtues as courage and perseverance can be used to further
negative intent.
Kant felt that
intention was the sole determining factor in assessing the goodness of an
action. The consequences of an action cannot ever be controlled and thus it is the intent that must be
used to judge if it is a moral act. The intention, he said, must be based on
reason, not inclination or training or fear or expectation of consequences. If the
intention is not out of choice, then the action is not good. He also believed
that for an action to be good it had to be universal; if it could not be
applied to any given scenario, then it was not good. Kant believed that the
matching of will and reason was true freedom, for if a person reached
this stage of moral development then they were capable of eliminating any
conscious desires or subconscious motives and genuinely choosing to do
good. To Kant, this was the high end of morality. The middle ground, 'amorality',
was when someone was incapable of reason, and thus could not be accounted for
their actions, making them not a person but an animal. Someone who is 'immoral' has a choice to be a person, and chooses to be a non-person as a result of
being aware of what is right and what is wrong and consciously choosing not to
do what is right.
Immanuel Kant
would consider Jennifer a non-person. In fact, she could serve as the
definition of his theory of immorality. She is most certainly not an animal.
Before her assault, she is a highly intelligent and independent author. And
while some might cite the inevitable mental deterioration from such a trauma,
Jennifer’s actions certainly appeared to be conscious and well thought out. She
began her revenge several days after the assaults, and each action was
premeditated: she did not simply lash out at her attackers, but rather lured
them in before taking revenge. Furthermore, the pivotal scene before the altar
is crucial to her actions, for it proves that she was most definitely aware of
her wrongdoing and asked God to excuse it. She knew that what she was doing was
wrong, and she chose to go through with it anyway.
Of course, her deliberate
avoidance of acting good is not the only element of her behavior that would
earn Kant’s condemnation. Her intentions would certainly appear to be based on
her own personal desires to seek vengeance against these men. The act is
motivated by what the act will do for her, and thus it cannot be good. Although
one might argue that her behavior was out of an intent to protect other women
from suffering the same fate, Kant would argue that such a motivation could not
be accounted for. Even if Jennifer were to state, or even believe, that this
was her reason, Kant would not buy it. He would likely point to Jennifer’s
subconscious motivations, no doubt believing there would be no way a woman in her state
could differentiate between her personal desire for revenge and her interest in
benefiting her gender as a whole.
Even if she was genuinelyattempting to aid women, Kant would disapprove anyway. He believed that
humans could never be objectified as a means to an end, and this is exactly
what Jennifer would be doing if her interest is female well being. Furthermore,
he would feel that Jennifer could not universalize the maxim of her actions; if
she can kill four men who have done her wrong, should everyone do the same
thing when it suits them? Kant would attest that the only moral action in this
situation would be for Jennifer to seek out the police. This way, she would be
protecting women and resisting her own vengeful urges so as to uphold the
belief that murder is wrong.
Jeremy Bentham is
an icon of utilitarianism. His philosophical theory was somewhat simpler than
that of Kant, and certainly much more clinical in its arrangement. He believed
that an act would be moral if it is useful in producing pleasure and reducing
pain. An immoral act would reduce pleasure and increase pain, and an amoral
act would have neutral consequences. His
most significant contribution to the Theory of Utility was the Hedonistic
Calculus, a “mathematical” approach to determining an action's moral worth. The
Hedonistic Calculus determines the morality of an action on a scale of –10 to
10 (maximum of immorality to maximum of morality) based on seven factors: intensity,
duration, certainty vs. uncertainty, propinquity, purity, fecundity, and
extent.
If Bentham were to
asses Jennifer’s actions by means of the Hedonistic Calculus, his judgment would certainly be more comprehensive and less harsh than that of Kant, but
ultimately he would come to a similar conclusion. The intensity of the rapists’
pain at the hands of Jennifer is certainly intense, but this does not
necessarily equate the intensity of Jennifer’s pleasure. Having been raised to
believe murder is wrong, it is unlikely that she is “enjoying” killing these
men. As such, her pleasure is evident, in some degree, but certainly not
intense. The duration of pleasure is a more dichotomous aspect of the scenario.
If you look at the pleasure from a strictly vengeful perspective, her pleasure
is short: simply put, the men do not take very long to die. If she is getting
pleasure from knowing that their actions will not reoccur in the future, then
the duration is lasting. Before killing the men, there is clearly a great deal
of uncertainty on Jennifer’s mind. Is she capable of murder? Will she be able
to live with herself? Similarly, the certainty of pleasure is weak. As stated
before, it is not likely that the actual acts of murder will be pleasurable.
Regardless of what
Jennifer will experience, it will happen soon. Propinquity is the most assured
act on the Calculus, because the murders will happen when she initiates them,
and whatever feelings they bring about will begin simultaneously. If there is
pleasure to be had in the experience of killing, it is certainly not pure.
Jennifer is a human being, and someone who has lived a life that clearly did
not indicate a murderous rampage in her future. As such she will likely
experience mixed emotions in the wake of her actions. And in a more realistic
sense, it is possible that her life afterwards will be one of great pain. She
will end up being arrested and tried, or she will either escape and forever be
running or simply ‘get away with murder’ and live with the secret of what she
has done. There are no worthy accolades to follow such action. Similarly, the
fecundity is weak in the assessment as well, for pleasure is not going to
follow and her acts are completely isolated and will
never happen again.
The extent of
Jennifer’s actions are perhaps the most damning aspect of the argument against
her. Midway through the film, it is revealed that the character of Johnny has a
wife and two young children, and we see these children playing with their
father shortly before he is murdered. This is one example of a family that will
be devasted by the actions, for he is a husband
and father to people who love him regardless of his actions. We never see what backgrounds the other
men come from, but it goes without saying that their deaths would likely bring
about great pain among family and friends. Furthermore, Jennifer’s own circle
of friends and family would experience pain if she should be punished or forced
to flee as a result of the actions.
With all aspects
having been weighed, Bentham would agree that Jennifer should avoid taking
justice into her own hands and instead turn the men in to the police. This way
they will be punished and Jennifer will have the satisfaction of knowing that
other women will not be harmed, and neither Jennifer nor the rapists' families
will be quite as seriously hurt. The children will be able to visit their rapist father, and Jennifer’s family could deal with her rape trauma as opposed to
seeing their daughter locked up or on the run.
Before I divulge
my own assessment of Jennifer’s actions, I suppose it’s important that I state
my bias: I consider I Spit On Your Grave to be one of the finest films
ever made. Considering the passionate arguments for and against the film, such
a statement might illicit laughter or disgust, but the very reason that I feel
this way is largely because of the moral questions that follow the film. It is
a wholly uncompromising and disturbing experience, so much so that no one
involved went on to do anything significant in film in the years following its
scandalous release. It is not an easy film to watch, but it is an even harder
film to think about, because it forces questions on the
audience like no movie before or since. It is offensive to many people, but
that is the goal of the filmmakers, and they have certainly succeeded in eliciting a response. Numerous essays have been written on the film, and
feminist/professor Carol J. Clover dedicated the bulk of a whole chapter to an
analysis of the film in her book Men, Women, and Chainsaws: Gender in the
Modern Horror Film. I myself have written reviews and essays of the film in
the past, and am always anxious to discuss my feelings on the film since it
spawns new ones each time I view it. Having analyzed my feelings and
weighed them against my personal philosophies, I think that I have come to a
solid conclusion regarding my own opinion.
One of the most
vital elements of my philosophical beliefs is that human beings are animals.
This is certainly a well known fact, but it is one which people tend to
disregard, most likely because humans tend to think of themselves as far more
intelligent and sophisticated than other animals as a result of our ascendance
up the food chain. We tend to intellectualize our actions to the point of
deconstructing our very existence. We create belief systems and many of us hold
up these beliefs in higher regard than our more abstract instincts we
experience. I also believe in God, and God plays the most significant role in
my philosophical theories. I believe that what we do not understand is
understood by God, and that we must have faith in God to understand these
things for us. I believe in doing what is “Godly”, and I believe in
Madonna’s mantra that “where there is violence there is no God”.
With that having
been said, my belief system gets a thorough shake up when asked to analyze the
central premise of I Spit on Your Grave. On one hand, it seems that to
dismiss the gang rapes and focus on Jennifer’s decision to take action is, in
itself, a statement regarding society. Do we really consider revenge a worse
crime than offense? Or are we so sure that the men’s action was wrong that we
must address our own feelings and weigh them against our intellectual
sensibility in order to form an opinion regarding Jennifer’s course of action?
I believe that
most people would consider the second line more appropriate, though I might
argue that the two sentences are quite similar. One part of me wonders why we
should critique her actions at all. Anyone who has been raped has a
clearer idea of the horror and trauma of the experience than some one who knows
it merely as a word. And yet the depiction of gang rape, in its graphic nature and sheer
relentlessness, is so potent that one feels as if they
are the victim while watching the film. Some might argue that this is emotional
manipulation, intended to make one sympathize with Jennifer’s action. I agree,
only I do not consider this a negative argument. To the contrary, if we are not
emotionally affected (or manipulated) then we are applying a completely aloof
assessment to a very complex situation. What right does a person have to judge
Jennifer’s actions when they are too afraid to allow their own emotions to be
caught up in hers?
This, of course,
brings me back to my emphasis on the connection between humans and animals.
Animals, from what we as humans can see, make decisions based on emotion. They
do not intellectualize their decisions or weigh alternatives. They act on
impulse, because they know that this is the best means of survival. For
example, if a female dog sees an animal attacking her puppies, or having killed
them, she will fight the animal to the death. We as humans have this same
protective instinct, but fear using it because it clashes with the society that
we have created apart from the rest of the animal kingdom. Jennifer is using
this innate ability, and should not be punished for it.
I am not, however,
trying to suggest that Jennifer is in any way “animalistic”. To the contrary, I
feel that her actions were well thought out, and ultimately an act of
self-sacrifice. As I mentioned earlier, her killing the men will likely bring
about punishment by the law, and she is well aware of this. Yet she is willing
to sacrifice years of her life in a jail cell because she feels so strongly
that she must kill these men. She asked for the forgiveness of God, implying
that if in His eyes she could be forgiven for her otherwise Godless acts, then
she would be willing to accept responsibility and pay the consequences for an
action which she felt so strongly about. In a warped way, this is exactly what
Kant encouraged people to strive for. Her decision was completely selfless, for
in the end it would only bring her pain. Yet she would do it, because she felt
it was the right and natural response. And, I believe, because it would mean
that her experience would not be relived by another woman.
While watching the
film, and living Jennifer’s story, I never have any doubt that what she is
doing is right. I do not consider myself a believer in the “eye for an eye”
mentality, and yet I never felt that Jennifer should refrain from her actions.
It is not until after the film is over that I reassess my feelings, applying
them to intellectual inquiry. However, this is where my own background as a
“human elitist” is evident. If I were to trust my emotions I would not think
twice about justifying Jennifer’s actions. And as some one who believes in the
importance of emotions and instinct, I agree with and support Jennifer doing exactly what she did.
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