I Spit on Your Grave Deja Vu
When I heard the team of Meir Zarchi and Camille Keaton were back for a sequel to I Spit on Your Grave, I was excited. And then I started hearing what people thought of it. Now, I keep an open mind when going into movies. I know that there are some I like that others don’t and vice versa. But OMG, I Spit on Your Grave Deja Vu was bad.
Photo Credit: Deja Vu (IIc)
Released: Apr 23, 2019
Runtime: 2 hrs 28 mins
Director: Meir Zarchi
Writer: Meir Zarchi
Actors: Camille Keaton, Jamie Bernadette, Maria Olsen
PLOT
Jennifer and her daughter are kidnapped and taken back to the location where Jennifer was raped years prior. Family members of the original four men want revenge and now it’s their turn.
MY THOUGHTS
There’s eight deaths in the movie (and mentions of the four from the original movie). Two of the deaths are throughbacks to deaths in the original. Christy kills Herman by stabbing him with a sickle. (And finishes him off with a gunshot.) While Jennifer kills Andy with an ax to the back. And the second death is Kevin’s penis getting cut off. It’s just like when Jennifer kills Johnny. Unfortunately I think the kills were better in the original. Though the beheading kill was original.
The acting isn't great either. I did like seeing Camille Keaton (known for I Spit on Your Grave 1978 and What Have You Done to Solange?) returning as Jennifer. I was excited to see her, but I think the script/story kind of let her down. I think she may have been underutilized.
We get Jamie Bernadette (Reel Evil and The Bunnyman Massacre) as Christy, Jennifer’s daughter. She seems to have one facial look through most of the movie. I guess I feel bad for what she goes through but not as much as with Jennifer. I feel more emotionally connected with Jennifer whereas Jamie is just this girl. I don’t know if it was just a director’s choice to have Christy so cold but I didn’t care for it.
Maria Olsen (Paranormal Activity 3, The Haunting of Whaley House, and Starry Eyes. Though she has played in a lot of movies.) plays Becky, Johnny’s wife who orchestrates the kidnapping and revenge. She plays a creepy woman who easily controls the other pathetic men. I think she did play a pretty good job as someone wanting revenge and just being over all a piece of garbage.
Jennifer is having lunch with her daughter Christy. Jennifer has gone on to be successful after her rape. She wrote a book about her experence and became a rape victim advocate. Her daughter (that we later find out is Johnny’s daughter) Christy is a very successful model/runway model who wants to leave the business and do something else.
When they leave a while van shows up with two creepy guys who kidnap both Jennifer and Christy. We find out they are family members of the four men Jennifer killed. They were upset that she was found not guilty for killing the men.
Soon they meet up with Becky, Johnny's wife, who hates Jennifer very much. She came up with the plan to get revenge. Though, she’s mad that they brought Christy who is innocent in everything (according to her). They split the women up.
Becky and Kevin (Stanley’s brother) take Jennifer to the same place where she had hung Matthew. And Scotty (Andy’s cousin) takes Christy in the van. As Jennifer is forced to dig a grave, she uses the shovel to get away, and run off.
Christy tricks Scotty into stopping and letting her go to the bathroom. She too gets away and with the van so she heads back to where her mother was dropped off. Jennifer gets away and gets a ride with a strange older couple who drop her off at a cemetery.
While at the cemetery, Becky catches up with Jennifer, and slits her throat. She then decapitates her ruthlessly. Christy soon arrives at the church and sees her mother. Before she can do anything, Jennifer’s body is taken away in the van.
Becky chases Christy into the woods where Herman (Matthew’s father) and Kevin capture her. Kevin rips off her clothes and rapes her. Becky arrives and attempts to rape her too, but Herman stops her and helps Christy get away.
The next morning Christy shows up at Herman’s house and stabs him in the back with a sickle, finally putting him out of his misery with a gunshot to his head. She then searches for the others. Meanwhile, Kevin and Scotty see Herman’s car on the side of the road and investigates. Kevin goes to look and Christy seduces him like her mother did to Johnny. Only to stab him in the balls with a shard of glass.
Scotty finally gets out of the van to see what is taking so long and is held up by Christy. She has him take his pants off and basically anally rapes him with the gun, then shooting him through the ass and exiting out his head.
Now she goes to find Becky. Becky gets the upper hand but the odd older couple from early shows up and Christy then kills Becky. This is when you think it’s over but it’s not. She wants to know where her mothers body is and the older couple tell her it’s next to her fathers grave. This is when she finds out that Johnny is her father.
At the grave, Christy finds out that the old couple is actually Johnny’s parents and they, along with another woman (Matthew’s grandmother), think they kill Christy by hitting her with a shovel. Once the three old people leave, quoting prayers, Christy leaves the grave. She grabs the shovel and starts killing the women.
She chooses not to kill the man, to have him put her mother’s body in the back of the truck. She then was going to let him go (he is her grandfather), but he isn’t having it. He uses his gun and shoots himself in the head.
Overall, this is a bad movie. It’s nearly 2 and a half hours long! It feels as if they really didn’t do much editing to it. If they would have cut an hour (at least) to it, it may have been decent. Though the acting was kind of bad as well.
And again, Herman, Matthew's father is slow. He does stutter but I don’t know at what mental capacity he was at. He also didn’t rape or help rape Christy. If anything he stopped the second rape from happening and helped her escape. I’m not saying he shouldn’t have been punished, but I don’t think he needed to be killed.
I do not recommend watching this. Even as a completionist, it would be rough. Camille Keaton can’t save this movie. I hope they stop making movies in this franchise.
And now for your Forever Final Girl Exclusive…Did you know?:
This is the first film that actually shows someone spitting on a grave.
It is a direct sequel to the original I Spit on Your Grave.
Camille Keaton said in a 2019 interview that she kept on writer-director Meir Zarchi for about 30-35 years saying, "Why don't you make a sequel to I Spit on Your Grave?" Finally she gave up, because it didn't happen. Then one day she got a phone call to star in this 2019 sequel.
Jamie Bernadette said she'd turned down nudity in the past, though she did show her bare behind in Elder Island (2016), yet this was her first onscreen full nudity. She agreed to do it because it was important in the film. But she also requested that the male stars show their butts on screen too. Jeremy Feldman and Jonathan Peacy both agreed.
It is suggested, through dialogue, that Christy is the product of Jennifer's rape by one of the assailants in the original film. The question is answered by the end of the story.
Have you seen the other I Spit on Your Grave movies? Check out my other reviews here: I Spit on Your Grave Franchise.
Let’s get into the rankings:
Kills/Blood/Gore: 2.5/5
Sex/Nudity: 2/5 Nudity from this movie and flashbacks of the rape in the original movie.
Scare factor: 1/5
Enjoyment factor: 1/5
My Rank: 1.3/5
IMDB: 2.4/10
Rotten Tomatoes: critics: –/10 audience: 1.2/10
Letterboxd: 1.3/5