Fantastic Fest 2010 was host to the first public screening of  I Spit on Your Grave: Unrated (2010.) The film is a remake of the shocking, iconic 1978 movie sometimes known as Day of the Woman.

A lot of people argue that there was no need to remake the film, which to this day is considered one of the most disturbing movies of all time.

So, does the update do the original justice? Quite simply, it does, and then some.

(Female) producer Lisa Hansen came out to introduce the film to the audience, and she also participated in a Q & A session following the film.

She indicated that over 100 cuts had been made to the movie to try to placate the MPAA, but finally distributor Anchor Bay threw in the towel and decided to release the movie as unrated. This is a ballsy movie nowadays, as many large chains won’t even book an unrated film, so that may be why you have a hard time finding the film in a theater near you. Kudos to Anchor Bay for sticking to their guns, and director Steven R. Monroe’s vision.

The premise of the movie has remained almost identical to the original. A fresh scrubbed writer type from the big city has sought out the peace and quiet of an isolated cabin in the woods, hoping to get a jump on writing her second novel.

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By Jane Almirall and Shannon Hood

Day three of the festival we got some screenings in, a few interviews, and lots of shorts.

I Saw The Devil Directed by Ji-woon Kim.  Starring Byung-hun Lee (The Good the Bad, the Weird) and Min-sik Choi (Oldboy, Lady Vengeance.)

Shannon:  I seriously contemplated not attending this screening, because it was so early, and because it was subtitled, and it was 2 and 1/2 hours long.

I am so glad I decided to attend.  This Korean revenge movie blew me away, and is my favorite movie of the festival thus far.

I Saw The Devil is a beautiful, brutal, and horrifying revenge tale.  It has the most chilling sociopathic villain I have seen in any movie since Hannibal Lector. The 2 and 1/2 hour running time flies by.  Full review forthcoming.

Interview: Simon Rumley (director; Red, White, and Blue.)  Simon is from London, but directed his film entirely in the Austin area, and even hosted a pub crawl to the various venues that he used in the movie.  He talked about the taboos he broke in the movie, the jarring musical score, and how influential pal Tim League helped him with the movie.  Full interview forthcoming.

We Are What We Are Directed by Jorge Michel Grau.  Starring Adrián Aguirre, Miriam Balderas, Francisco Barreiro, and Carmen Beato. Summary:  When the patriarch of the family passes away, the teenage children must take responsibility for the family chores: the preparation of the rituals…

This was a bit of a mixed bag, about a mexican family of cannibals who must make do after the patriarch of the family passes away unexpectedly.

What’s surprising is that cannibals are usually depicted as redneck backwards ass families.  This is, by all appearances, a normal family.

They eat humans for “the ritual,”  but the movie never really explains what the ritual is.  I wish we would have found out more about their motivations for the cannibalism.  I’m kind of in the middle on this one.

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The remake of 1978 film I Spit on Your Grave (aka The Day of the Woman) is imminent, and we have a brand new clip to show you. When the original  film was released, it was one of the most audacious films of its time, for many reasons.

The movie was about a woman who was brutally assaulted and raped by a group of men who leave her for dead.  She extracts her revenge on the men by tracking down the men one by one and torturing them in horrific ways.

The violence and brutality of the film was shocking on its own, but this was also considered a feminist film by many.  It was very rare to see women commit such atrocities on film at the time.

In this scene, Jennifer (played by Sarah Butler) encounters her tormentors  for the first time at a gas station.  She was hoping to spend some quiet time in the country to finish a novel, but it looks like her plans get derailed rather quickly.

The film also stars Chad Lindberg, Jeff Branson, Daniel Franzese, Rodney Eastman, and Tracey Walter, and is directed by Steven R. Monroe.

I Spit on Your Grave: Unrated is scheduled to be released on October 8 in limited release, but first it will be making a stop at Fantastic Fest. Since we have some staff members attending the festival in Austin, we’ll be able to give you some early thoughts on the film.  Stay tuned.

Until then, watch the clip after the jump.

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Since Tarantino and Rodriguez reintroduced the allure of the Grind House genre to an unsuspecting worldwide audience, original films and scripts from that time have been fair game for studios to snatch up and update for the modern audience. Rogue continued that trend last year by rebooting Wes Craven’s classic Last House On The Left. It opened with moderate success, and now it’s Anchor Bay’s turn, with a reboot of 1978′s I Spit On Your Grave (also known as Day of the Woman).

For those not in the know,  this is basically the ultimate revenge flick, updated for the modern, jaded youth with ultra sex and hyper violence. Need more? Here’s the film’s full synopsis.

Writer Jennifer Hills (Sarah Butler) takes a retreat from the city to a charming cabin in the woods to start on her next book. But Jennifer’s presence in the small town attracts the attention of a few morally deprived locals who set out one night to teach this city girl a lesson. They break into her cabin to scare her. However, what starts out as terrifying acts of humiliation and intimidation, quickly and uncontrollably escalates into a night of physical abuse and torturous assault. But before they can kill her, Jennifer sacrifices her broken and beaten body to a raging river that washes her away. Against all odds, Jennifer Hills survived her ordeal. Now, with hell bent vengeance, Jennifer’s sole purpose is to turn the tables on these animals and to inflict upon them every horrifying and torturous moment they carried out on her… only much, much worse.

Just hitting the web is the trailer to this frightening remake, and we can honestly admit that this remake plans on doing the original film justice.

Check out the full trailer after the jump, and be sure to catch the full film in theaters and Unrated on October 8th. No word on how a lack of MPAA rating will effect distribution, but be sure that we’ll be the first in line when this flick hits our local theater.

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