Table Of ContentRevisionist Rape-Revenge
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Revisionist Rape-Revenge
Redefining a Film Genre
Claire Henry
revisionist rape-revenge
Copyright © Claire Henry, 2014.
Soffftcoverr eprint off thehardcover 1stedition2014 978-1-137-41416-8
All rights reserved.
First published in 2014 by PALGRAVE MACMILLAN® in the United States—a
division of St. Martin’s Press LLC, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10010.
Where this book is distributed in the UK, Europe, and the rest of the world, this
is by Palgrave Macmillan, a division of Macmillan Publishers Limited,
registered in England, company number 785998, of Houndmills, Basingstoke,
Hampshire RG21 6XS.
Palgrave Macmillan is the global academic imprint of the above companies and
has companies and representatives throughout the world.
Palgrave® and Macmillan® are registered trademarks in the United States, the
United Kingdom, Europe and other countries.
ISBN 978-1-349-49016-5 ISBN 978-1-137-41395-6 (eBook)
DOI 10.1057/9781137413956
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Henry, Claire, 1982-
Revisionist rape-revenge: redefining a film genre / by Claire Henry.
pages cm
Includes bibliographical references and index.
1. Rape in motion pictures. I. Title.
PN1995.9.R27H46 2014
791.43’6556—dc23
2014017522
A catalogue record of the book is available from the British Library.
Design by Amnet.
First edition: October 2014
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
Contents
List of Figures vii
Acknowledgments ix
Introduction: Reapproaching Rape-Revenge 1
1 Remaking Rape-Revenge: The Last
House on the Left (1972/2009) and I Spit on Your
Grave (1978/2010) 27
2 The Postfeminist Trap of Vagina
Dentata for the American Teen Castratrice 57
3 Rape, Racism, and Descent into the
Ethical Quagmire of Revenge 79
4 The Shame of Male Acolytes: Negotiating
Gender and Sexuality Through Rape-Revenge 109
5 Collective Revenge: Challenging the
Individualist Victim-Avenger in Death Proof, Sleepers,
and Mystic River 143
Conclusion: Challenging the Boundaries of Cinema’s
Rape-Revenge Genre in Katalin Varga and Twilight Portrait 169
Notes 183
Works Cited 197
Filmography 207
Index 211
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List of Figures
I.1 Adam (Danny Dyer) challenging the spectator
in a final look to camera in Straightheads
(Dan Reed, 2007) 18
1.1 I Spit on Your Grave (Meir Zarchi, 1978)
film poster. Courtesy of Barquel Creations, Inc. 29
1.2 Jennifer (Sarah Butler) takes revenge on
Stanley (Daniel Franzese) in I Spit on Your Grave
(Steven R. Monroe, 2010) 51
2.1 The final look in Teeth (Mitchell Lichtenstein, 2007).
Does Dawn (Jess Weixler) harness her power, or resign
herself to her situation? 77
3.1 Maya (Rosario Dawson) in the final shot of
Descent (Talia Lugacy, 2007) 104
4.1 Chasely (Hanna Mangan-Lawrence) becomes
the Final Girl in Acolytes (Jon Hewitt, 2008) 122
4.2 The Book of Revelation (Ana Kokkinos, 2006)
DVD menu screen 125
4.3 Daniel’s (Tom Long) embodiment of shame in The Book of
Revelation (Ana Kokkinos, 2006) 128
4.4 Jamie (Lucas Pittaway) looks directly into the
pedophile’s camera in Snowtown (Justin Kurzel, 2011) 135
5.1 The final freeze frame of Death Proof
(Quentin Tarantino, 2007) 155
5.2 Jimmy (Sean Penn) and Sean (Kevin Bacon)
flash back to their childhood friend Dave’s abduction
in Mystic River (Clint Eastwood, 2003) 166
C.1 Katalin (Hilda Péter) recounts her experience of
being raped to Antal (Tibor Pálffy) and Etelka (Melinda
Kántor) in Katalin Varga (Peter Strickland, 2009) 175
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Acknowledgments
Thank you to my editors at Palgrave Macmillan in New York, Robyn Curtis
and Erica Buchman, for taking on this book and being supportive through-
out the process to publication.
The initial research was enabled by a full PhD studentship granted
by the English, Communication, Film and Media Department at Anglia
Ruskin University (Cambridge, UK) in 2009. I was very fortunate to have
Dr. Tanya Horeck as my supervisor and Dr. Tina Kendall as my second
supervisor, who not only saw me through to successful completion in 2012,
but also gave me feedback on some of the new research presented in this
book. I was blessed with a lovely cohort of fellow PhD candidates in the
Faculty of Arts, Law and Social Sciences: Sharifa Begum, Karin Brunby, Ian
Burrows, Beverly Carpenter, Amy Crawford, Ellie Crouch, Lynsey McCull-
och, Rob Tovey, and Jo Vine. These British friends, along with E-j Scott,
Helen Marshall, and Ruth McPhee, sustained me through my expatriate
adventures and descent into the study of rape-revenge. Thank you also to
my PhD examiners, Dr. Michele Aaron and Dr. Sean Campbell, for their
helpful feedback and for encouraging me to publish the research as a book.
I am grateful for the opportunities I have had to present this research at
conferences, including a paper on The Last House on the Left at Cine-Excess
V: Subverting the Senses: The Politics and Aesthetics of Excess in London in
2011 and a paper on Katalin Varga and Twilight Portrait at the 2013 Society
for Cinema and Media Studies (SCMS) conference in Chicago. Thank you
to Dr. Xavier Mendik for publishing my article, “The Last House on the Left:
The Redemption of the Remake,” in the inaugural issue of the Cine-Excess
peer-reviewed ejournal, Subverting the Senses: The Politics and Poetics of
Excess, and for permission to include it in this book. Thank you also to
Marc Sheffler (Junior in the original The Last House on the Left) for his
commentary on my article in the journal. The concluding chapter of this
book was originally published in the Intellect journal, Studies in European
Cinema (Volume 10, Issue 2–3), and I would like to thank Professor Owen
Evans for permission to include it here. I am also grateful to Meir Zarchi
for permission to use the I Spit on Your Grave poster.
