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- Take off your clothes.
- I don't like women giving me orders.
(gun fires)
- [Narrator] I Spit on Your Grave.
What you are about to see did happen.
- [Terry] It was 1976, I was nine years old,
and my sister was all excited,
telling me how we're gonna be in the movie,
and I was scared.
After being approached by several hippie crew members
trying to convince me to do the scene,
I finally agreed to be in the film,
after I was offered 10 bucks from my dad.
Little did I know that my father was in the process
of making what many consider to be
one of the most controversial
and disturbing films in cinematic history.
(operatic singing)
In July of 1976, Camille Keaton
landed the role of Jennifer Hills,
and Meir Zarchi wrote the screenplay,
directed, and edited the feature.
Here's the story of how it all began.
- [Woman] Stop it!
(ominous music)
- I'm gonna get you, ah!
- [Terry] So what made this film so controversial back then,
and equally so today?
Did my father have any idea of the impact
this film would have, not only in the US,
but around the globe?
Completed in 1978, and originally titled
Day of the Woman, this saga of rape and revenge
has been labeled as an extremely graphic and violent film,
and one of the most disturbing movies ever created,
yet it has become a cult classic of epic proportion.
The original uncut version of I Spit on Your Grave
has long been called too ugly, too violent,
and too terrifying to watch.
Others have called it a powerful and superb cinema.
(man whooping)
(men whooping)
- Bastards!
- [Terry] Until today, decades after it was made,
the film still has the power
to disturb and divide audiences.
Is this a misogynistic film or a truly feminine one?
Are women empowered or exploited by the revenge fantasy?
While many consider it as nothing
but a degrading exploitation piece that sensualizes
the treatment of sexual violence,
others assert that beneath
all the brutality, blood, and breasts
is pure brilliance and proclaim it to be
an important milestone in cinema history.
Can there be any value in depicting a woman
being raped repeatedly?
Why should the viewer be forced to share
the torment and degradation she goes through
in such graphic detail?
Is the situation redeemed in a film
where the victim is allowed an equally monstrous response?
- Stay where you are.
- [Terry] There has been a lot of speculation
regarding the filmmaker's intentions
in I Spit on Your Grave.
- You're kidding!
- [Terry] So what exactly drove Zarchi to make this movie?
And this was back in the mid '70s
when video rentals and the internet were nonexistent.
The only way to see a film in those days
would be in a movie theater,
so I ask again.
What exactly drove Zarchi to make this movie?
It all comes down to one October day.
What they witnessed and encountered that afternoon
certainly impacted all of them,
including the face of cinema.
- Well from my recollection,
we would go often on weekends to play tennis.
My father and his best friend Alex and I
would go play tennis.
I just remember that we were passing our local park
that we always passed on the way to the tennis courts.
We see a naked woman coming out of the park,
a naked woman, looks like she's muddy and bloodied.
- October 1974,
in an area called Jamaica Hills,
a rainy day, Sunday,
and every weekend Alex Pfau, very dear friend of mine,
now deceased, would usually come on Saturday or Sunday,
both days we would play tennis.
Obviously at that day when it came,
we couldn't play tennis because the ground was wet.
So Alex told me Meir, how about
going for a jog?
Let's jog. Run around
the running course of the high school.
My daughter Tammy was eight years old at the time,
said Daddy Daddy can I join you?
I said sure, come on over.
We had to cut through a little beautiful neighborhood park
to get into the high school.
As we were cutting through the park,
Alex suddenly looks through my window
and says is she naked, is she naked?
I said Alex what do you mean naked, who is naked?
- My dad immediately stopped the car.
He said stay in the car, and him and Alex got out.
- I saw out of the bushes,
a girl 18 or 19,
totally naked.
Bleeding, mud, dirt,
walking like zombie.
Immediately I jumped out of the car,
I ran toward her,
and she fell on my shoulders,
trembling, shaking, could hardly speak.
I asked what happened, what happened?
Could hardly emit the words I was raped.
At that moment, Alex arrived also.
He took off his plastic parka
and we wrapped it around her and I said don't worry.
He held her on one side, I'm on the other,
I said come we take you for help.
We help her into the car.
She sat right next to who?
To my eight years old daughter in the back seat.
- I'm watching and all I see is them
covering this woman with their jackets,
and they put her in the back seat next to me,
and said Tammy, this woman's been raped.
We're dropping you off at home.
Go inside and tell your mother,
and we're going to take her to the police station.
- She gets out of the car, and we watch her
climbing the stairs, ringing the bell,
to make sure that she's safely home.
The door opened, I saw my wife there
letting her in, we sped off.
- [Tammy] I immediately ran into the house
and got my mom and told her that--
- [Girl] Mommy Mommy we found a girl who was raped!
- A woman had just been raped.
I didn't know what rape was,
and my mother had to explain
at that time to me what rape was.
- [Girl] Mommy what is rape?
- Tomorrow, my daughter, eight years old daughter,
will play in the park,
those guys can do the same thing to her.
And maybe they're still around.
Maybe the police can't capture them.
- First thing that went through my mind
is I'm never going to that park again.
That was the scariest part for me
is I'm at that park all the time.
Oh my god, there's someone that does this over there?
And I was actually scared for my own safety at that point.
Then after that I probably was more vigilant
about being careful wherever I was.
- We came to the police station.
The sergeant sits behind the desk.
He hardly pays attention to her.
Yes what happened?
She was raped, we found her in the park.
Oh yeah, what's your name?
- Yeah I wasn't aware of how she was treated
at the police station at that time.
I wasn't aware of that 'til years later actually.
- You've got to speak louder.
What's your name?
Why were you going through the park?
All kind of questions like this.
And finally we said to the sergeant,
sir, officer, cop,
call the ambulance right now.
- But of course it's a horrible thing
and it shows the times at that time in the '70s
when people just didn't understand
that it had to be a woman's fault to be raped,
and of course that's not the way our society
of course sees things today, thank God,
and I'm hoping that we keep moving forward with that.
- And they came and they took her away.
- It was just a horrible incident,
and I remember when Meir got home
and immediately started at the typewriter
and decided he was going to write a script about this.
- [Terry] Born on June 3, 1937, my father grew up in Israel
with his older brother by three years,
and his younger sister by 12 years.
- Well I was born in 1937,
that's 11 years before Israel became the state of Israel,
and I had a wonderful, wonderful
interesting adventurous childhood.
We're living in a street near the beauty parlor,
not more than half a block away from it
in the heart of Tel Aviv in an apartment
which was approximately let me see,
about 16 feet by 16 feet, no more.
Four of us.
My mother, father,
my brother, and I.
And we lived there since I was two or three years old
until the age of 11.
- [Terry] As a young child, Meir was influenced
by many films including American, British,
Italian, watching movies
from all over the world with subtitles.
At the age of 12, Meir was greatly influenced
after watching Bicycle Thieves, and when he came out
of the local cinema with tears in his eyes, he said--
- And I said when I grow up I want to be a movie maker.
That's what drove me.
One day I'll be a movie maker.
- [Terry] Then as a teenager, he saved some money
and bought a camera and a projector
and started to make short home movies with his friends.
- For my bar mitzvah when I was 13 years old,
whatever money I got as gifts
I went to the photo shop and bought
a Magic Lantern.
You put 16 millimeter film and move it by hand,
crank it by hand,
and you see movies, silent movies.
Eventually at the age of 15 I had a room of my own,
and I bought a typewriter and I was writing stories.
And I was writing a lot of articles and stories
for children and youth magazines.
At 17 I went to write an article
about a newcomer who came to Israel
by the name of Yuri Haviv.
We became very friendly.
He invited me to the set to see how he shoots
some scenes from his movie.
The friendship with Yuri Haviv and me in Israel
spawned also two movies that we shot
that I wrote the screenplay for.
So the first screenplay I wrote
I may have been no more than 18,
and later when I was 21 or 22
after the service of the Israeli Army,
and eventually we got together to shoot Day of the Woman,
I Spit on Your Grave.
- [Terry] In 1975, shortly after that fateful day
when he crossed paths with the girl who had been raped,
Meir Zarchi's production company's primary focus
became the making of his low budget film, Day of the Woman.
- July fourth of 1975 we went to
stay for the holiday at Yuri's home in Connecticut.
It's a new home he just bought a few months earlier,
and when I saw the place,
maybe it was at that time that I said well,
there is a story.
She's coming to this house for summer vacation
to write her first novel.
To be in solitude and secluded.
And the entire vista.
The lake, the woods, the endless forest,
so weary and I was inspired
just by the feel of the place.
That's how the story at that moment came alive.
It took me four months to write the screenplay,
and I think I wrote it from December of 1975
to about March of 1976.
On the subway I used to write with a pencil,
pen on a yellow pad.
And your mother was typing it clean,
and obviously giving me some grammar suggestions
if I was misspelling or had some grammar mistakes.
Joseph Zbeda with whom I made two movies in Israel.
In 1975 he came to the United States looking for me,
and saying Meir let's work together,
let's make a movie together.
I put my own money, he put his own money,
and we had a few,
a few investors also
invested in the production.
So what I did, I just put an ad
in two trade magazines, weekly papers in New York City,
and we got a few thousand stills
for men, a few thousand stills for women.
Among them were obviously the one from Camille Keaton.
- It was 1976 and I was going through
the trade paper backstage,
and I saw this ad so I followed up on it,
went and auditioned.
- It took a lot of rehearsals, a lot of auditioning
day in and day out
to put all the five actors together,
the four men and the one girl.
Until I found the right chemistry between all of them.
- It was in one of the trade papers,
and when I went in for the audition
I talked with Meir and he explained the incident
where he had rescued someone who had been raped,
and the difficulty that he had,
or they had going to the police,
and the fact it was very ineffective.
This was an answer to that,
which appealed to me.
- Well I found out about the audition
for Meir's film through Backstage.
Went into his office, sat with Meir.
It was one of the most relaxed interviews I had.
I think Meir and I kind of struck a bond.
Maybe he strikes that with everybody.
He's a friendly, affable guy.
It was very cool.
- I got some callbacks.
Meir had us read with different actors.
I started looking at the script
and I thought wow, this is a great opportunity
to show my range of emotions.
I can start out as a normal, happy,
and then I become a victim,
and then I can play a villain.
- I almost turned it down.
It's so far removed from who I am as a person,
but I thought that,
when are you gonna get another chance
to do a lead role in a movie?
- I wanted that part.
I said, you have to give me this part.
You'll always wonder in the back of your mind,
you know maybe you might be sorry later.
You will think in your head that oh,
I should've used Camille.
- Yuri had all the equipment.
Camera, lighting, sound.
Other than the equipment,
now we needed people to operate those equipments.
So we got a lot of volunteers.
A lot of volunteers who come to us.
Bright guys, early to mid to late twenties.
Yuri taught them how to light,
how to use the GE sound recorder,
how to do everything else.
So we had about 15 people on the crew
other than Yuri and myself,
including a professional makeup girl.
- In the beginning when we first got there,
I was actually supposed to be rooming
with the first makeup girl and I said to Meir,
I said please I need my own room.
I have to have my own room.
I had to put my foot down on that one.
- Kent, Connecticut is a very quaint little town, beautiful.
Dwelling in tranquility.
With a river cutting through it,
cornfields, but the people were wonderful, accommodating.
They didn't see us, we didn't see them
because most of the time we were on the water,
but nobody was there.
The river, nobody was there.
Or in Yuri's home, nobody was there.
We almost were hidden from everybody.
The only time when we went to someplace
where there were people was the diner.
- Hot fudge, nuts, cherry on top?
- And the diner, they gave it to us for the whole night,
provided that we have dinner there
and pay for it, which we did of course,
and some of the diners appeared in this scene as well.
- We took over Kent.
- Kent, Connecticut's a great little community.
You really have to take into consideration
coming from the city, this in itself
is an environmental experience.
- We realized that we needed to make a raft.
We found a carpenter in Kent, Connecticut
who we gave him the design and the weight
and exactly what we need,
and we told him we need this raft to hold a lot of weight.
Camera, equipment, lights, 8, 10 people, 15,
and according to our specifications
he created this raft for $800.
And then we also bought, in a boat store we bought the canoe
and I remember he showed us a red, blue, and yellow canoe.
I decided to take the red, because the river
that flows in our veins,
the color is red.
- When you're shooting on the water,
you gotta have extra people making sure
that the raft was integral part of that platform
that you shoot the canoe and all the other scenes.
And Yuri was terrific with that.
He knew exactly what needed to be done.
I never heard oh-oh we got a problem.
It was kind of, something's not right,
okay let's fix it.
Let's see what we can do to fix it.
- The very first shot was Matthew
driving the bike into the house looking for her,
with his bags of items from the supermarket.
(chuckles)
- The very first day I arrived, it was the scene
where I was lying on the stairs
going down into the basement.
- I remember driving the car that I was driving
to the cabin that we used,
which belonged to the director of photographer, Yuri Haviv.
And I got out of the car,
you know I twirl around and I look at the place,
or something like that, and then I run out to the river
and I decided to go for a swim.
Well yes, I had done some nudity before,
but not to the extent that I did in I Spit on Your Grave.
- When I first got to look at the script,
and got to see what we might be doing,
it was a little shocking.
So I looked at this and I said ooh,
some of these scenes are a little eugh.
- I went back and I grabbed that script
and I said okay, I really gotta read this again you know?
So I was reading it and I was thinking
how are they going to film
this scene or that one?
How in the world are they gonna do that?
- The whole shoot took about 5 1/2, six weeks,
so for the first three weeks
was the rape sequences, and the second half,
the other three weeks was the revenge that she's taking.
- As far as I remember we did it
pretty much in continuity.
He probably didn't want to lose his lead,
so he got that out of the way you know?
- So I would say that Camille as she used to say
all the time she had 50% torture.
- Bastards!
- And 50% joy.
- Your clothes.
- I don't like women giving me orders.
(gun fires)
Shit!
- [Terry] That little shot
between Johnny's feet was a firecracker?
- It was a firecracker buried in the ground.
- It was well done in terms of that it was
a definite surprise for me
when the firecracker went off
and it got a real response from me.
- That was my CZ.32 caliber, Czechoslovakian pistol.
- When Eron Tabor came to the set,
and he goes to the edge of the Housatonic
and I mean he just throws everything,
takes everything off, throws it off,
and takes a swim.
I went to Meir and I said, did you see that?
He took off all his clothes and went for a swim.
- I had done a Playboy layout in May '73.
I was comfortable being nude.
Let's put it that way,
and I wanted to lighten up the atmosphere
because it was a heavy scenario
that we were about to undertake.
- Together they become explosive, they become dangerous.
Maybe each of them by itself
would be a decent guy.
Together, they become a pack of dogs.
We had another guy that I have selected
to play Johnny's role.
They were good for me equally,
each of them in a different way.
Your mother said to me Meir,
take Eron Tabor.
And I said why?
He's more handsome than the other guy.
- Eron Tabor was great!
- You came to a nice place.
How could I as the character
get to the point where I would do something so heinous?
I did what is called a lot of backstory,
a very detailed history
that I was raised normally
but went into the Vietnam War.
The war did some things that were not good,
and got comfortable with it,
and was very distraught at my position in life
after coming back.
- I enjoyed working with him.
Very professional, just focused.
- Part of it was getting the physicality of it down,
and I got engineer boots
that were a size too big to give me a lumbering walk.
I cut the heel so that
it had my walk in it,
but it was a very lumbering walk.
I got a pair of overalls
which would be like my uniform
to simulate being in the service.
I had a Marine cap.
I smoked Erik Cigars to deepen my voice.
- He was playing the big brother, the older guy.
- Fucking idiots you guys are.
It's been two weeks, man!
Two 90 degree weeks!
- We were goofballs under his influence,
and if I remember we assumed
that his character had come from Vietnam.
He was, you know, he had been around a little bit more,
so that was also
I think professionally what happened.
His character was more experienced than we were,
and I think professionally he was more experienced
than we were, and so we worked off of that.
- [Meir] Richard Pace, I love this guy.
He came to my office the first time,
and I let him then do some scenes from the screenplay.
- He's a great guy to work with,
really just a kind person.
Where I come from, people weren't that
enthusiastic about their place.
- Where's that, New York City?
- Mhmm.
- You come from an evil place.
- Richard and I commuted back and forth to the city.
When we had those opportunities,
and I know I freaked him out a couple of times
'cause he let me drive.
He didn't want to drive.
He didn't like to drive, I liked to drive.
And one time we were driving back
and I went into pass a car
and a car was coming up to me
and I waited almost to the last second,
'til he like ah, freaked out.
- Gunter Kleemann, we used to call him one-take Gunter,
'cause he was so good everything was one take with him.
Didn't need to take another take.
- We didn't talk too much.
- I'm gonna get you, ah!
- I figured his guy was probably a young kid,
that wasn't too secure in himself,
but he had a lot of capabilities.
At that time, I had suspenders.
I don't know why, I mean city kid.
What am I gonna do with suspenders?
But for some reason, I think I brought those suspenders
and of course everything had to be approved
for the characters, so Meir said yeah, it distinguishes you.
It makes you a little different from the other guys.
- Nor did I talk very much with Anthony.
- Come on, please?
Help me!
- Great guy, Anthony Nichols.
- Anthony Nichols and I really became closest friends
because we were also friends on screen.
Him and Meir had a fun kind of
teasing type of relationship,
so Tony was fun, he was fun to be around.
- The only thing I remember that they were very good
only at the last day or the last two days of shooting,
and we had to shoot the scenes
where she hits him on the back
and obviously with the propeller, the motorboat propeller.
- It wasn't my idea.
I didn't want to do it to you, I'm sorry, I really am!
It was Johnny, Johnny talked me into it!
- And the water was cold, and they both came to me
and they said look, the water is cold.
We cannot do this scene.
- Johnny made me do it.
I didn't want to do it, he made me do it!
- And I said look, what can I do you know?
They said why didn't you schedule it in before,
you know two weeks before when the water was warm?
And they were a bit angry about it,
but then they understood and they did what they did.
Whenever they came out of the water,
immediately we gave them a towel to dry themselves,
so they were very good.
Everybody was excellent.
- I enjoyed that scene.
That was my favorite day, the one in the motorboat?
They were on a raft, and I tried to go
as close as I could to them.
I wouldn't be able to do that today.
Close as I could to them
and one time they all went like that.
Well that was a dangerous thing to do,
because if I had been off
by this much, we wouldn't be here talking about it today
and that was, you know,
if you do things like that,
you think back on it and think oh,
how could I have done that, you know?
But I did.
Oh I just loved the power of handling the motorboat,
and making the circles.
You know I climbed into the motorboat by myself.
I don't know how I did that, but I did it.
I just climbed right on in,
and right on the boat,
and you were the one I really wanted,
or something, whatever I said, and then you know.
I talked to Meir about it before the scene was shot,
and I said you know,
why don't I just say suck it bitch to him?
He said it to me.
- Suck it bitch!
- In the scene before, in the rape scene.
I mean it made, it seemed like it was logical,
or made sense to me.
- Suck it bitch.
- There was a time in the movie
during one of the rape scenes
where I actually took a kick in the side, right here,
that was in the cabin
and with Stanley.
- Tony was, he had reservations
about the propeller, but I took the propeller off,
took out the spark plug.
I disconnected the gas line.
I went to a local dive shop down the road,
there's another town down the road,
and I rented a scuba tank, air tank.
I connected guess what?
Garden hose, ran on the other side,
so when she pulled on the starter rope,
I turned on the valve.
And the air came out and everything, and the water turned red,
and bubbles bubbled up and it looked scary as hell.
- It was Anthony's day to be killed,
and he knew I was gonna be learning
how to use the motorboat, learning.
I was sitting there having a little sandwich.
He grabbed my sandwich or something
and he said you should be out there
learning how to ride,
how to operate that motorboat.
I reacted to him and you know we're like,
almost in a scuffle I guess you could say,
and I realized that he must be so frightened,
especially in view of what happened
and he kicked me.
I think I told him, I said it's gonna be okay,
it's gonna be all right.
At least that's what I felt.
So I went out there and learned
how to run the outdoor motorboat.
I would have been afraid if I had been in the water,
seeing a motorboat come towards me,
and I would have to put a lot of my faith
into that person doing that.
That's gotta be really difficult from his POV.
- Well the motorboat experience was fabulous.
I did have a lot of experience sailing,
and motorboating and all of that.
I really, really loved the idea
that I'm gonna be able to do my own stunts.
The whole thing with the boat cutting back and forth
was I was getting a hard on for her,
so the more I was able to dig in,
the higher the boat would come up in front.
And that was the whole fun with that.
I was showing her I had a hard on for you, you know?
We had the camera man who was like 6'2, 6'3.
He was sitting at the tip of that little boat.
That man was 220 pounds at that point, I believe, big!
Big hands, big head.
He was professional, he was great.
He knew what he was doing.
He sat there as lightly as a bird.
I was shocked, and it helped me balance the boat too
as we could go, and he said
don't worry about me, just do the scene.
I loved him, I think we all did.
- Yuri Haviv was a wonderful part of the filming process.
He was very much a part of inspiring us.
- He was funny and then Meir is this little guy.
He would go (babbles)
And he would go (grunts) "Hey, Meir, what are we gonna do?
You know so you had this big guy and this little guy
and it was kind of comical in its own way.
- You know he was wonderful.
I really enjoyed working with him.
- And the famous saying, I'll never forget it.
After you know, we were working,
Meir was pushing us, pushing us,
and he wanted this scene and he wanted this
and he wanted the perfection,
and Yuri came up, Meir,
I am not an animal.
We all died, we laughed.
It was, it was all from the heart.
(woman screaming)
- What happened on the rock rape,
they cut out a piece of foam rubber,
white foam rubber.
It was contoured to my body
and it was about, I want to say
five or six inches thick or more,
and they put that between me and Gunter.
- That was the most difficult scene for me.
It made me confront the whole reality of actor and part.
I knew that I was digging deep with this,
you know, that I'm not this at all,
and yet I've gotta do it.
And so I gave myself the freedom to let go with it,
but I paid a price for it, my back.
And after those takes the next three days,
I couldn't hardly move.
- I just remembered it being very intense,
and after I'm not sure if we did
more than one take on it or not.
I think we probably did.
We were all very concerned about Camille
and that she was okay,
and she was a real trooper.
- She didn't want to do another take
when she was sodomized on the rock, the rock scene.
The angle that I wanted to do to take
is of her after the sodomizing
and they go away, her rolling down off the rock,
banging against a tree.
And that's what she didn't want to do.
- I said you want me to what?
You want me to,
you want me to do what?
- [Meir] And she said I'm not gonna do it anymore.
That's it.
- By this time my emotions were so,
I was so stressed out, everybody was.
- Camille was freaking out.
This was not Styrofoam rock.
This was a real rock.
- And she got very very mad, went into the van
where we had all the lighting equipment
and movie equipment, and started to
break things and throw things.
- I guess I threw a little temper tantrum,
and ran off to a van,
climbed in the van, and just cried and yelled
and screamed what seemed like a long time,
maybe a half an hour or 45 minutes.
- But when she came out after
45 minutes or an hour from the van,
she said to me--
- I want you to show me how this scene is gonna be done.
You do it.
- Let me see you falling off the rock.
So I went to the rock, and ah ah she said,
take off your clothes.
- And so he was taking off his clothes,
took off his shirt, he took off his pants,
he was gonna take off his underpants.
- In front of everybody I took off my clothes,
I was about to take off my underpants she said oh no no,
the underpants you can leave.
- I said no no no, stop there.
- [Meir] So I went on the rock with my underpants only,
and I rolled down slowly, banged against the tree.
- I was upset and I cried
and then I asked Meir to demonstrate it,
and then I think I said something like all right,
let's take this in one, do this in one take okay?
Let's get this over with.
- This was not easy for her.
She was a trooper, I gotta tell ya, she was a trooper.
- We did all the stunt work ourselves.
Well I didn't know that bump movement
was actually coming until it did.
I was running through the woods barefoot,
and finally I just ran into Johnny,
he just appeared out of nowhere.
That was very clever actually,
and I went oh,
and the only thing that worried me and bothered me
was I hope they don't hurt me when they're holding my arms
like they did to not hold me too tightly.
That kind of worried me.
- She was very much concerned with it,
and I'm sure that she must have
experienced a couple of bruises.
- We wanted to make sure that Camille
never was hurt, and it was a lot of joking
and having fun.
As a matter of fact, when I saw the footage
I was shocked at the editing
because what we were experiencing
doing it was a lot different
than what was captured and edited.
- That set was a set that there was so much going on,
and it was really, it was difficult.
We were there to do a job.
It was hot, we got up really early in the morning,
we worked hard, and I think for the most part
we got along very well,
and there was a lot of respect for each other.
- The place was infested
with mosquitoes, especially at night.
- I know there were mosquitoes there
that looked like they belonged in a zoo.
I was probably thinking and focusing on other things
other than the mosquitoes.
They were a nuisance, but I wasn't really dwelling on that.
When they were looking for the snakes,
I didn't know what that guy was doing out there
with that pole and going like that.
I thought that's weird.
I was concerned when I was doing that scene
more about losing my footing
than anything else,
but I didn't think, it didn't occur to me
there might be snakes there.
- My husband fucking never disappears on me.
He's not that kind of a man.
He's loyal to me.
He's a good father and a good husband.
- All these people came around and said Terry,
come on be in the film
and I just didn't want anything to do with it,
and finally I got the word that Meir was gonna pay me money,
and I said okay, well you know, for 10 bucks
when my allowance is like 40 cents a week, you know,
I'll take the 10 bucks you know?
- Why you hang out here all the time?
Huh?
- That's what convinced me to be in the film.
- [Tammy] Do you remember Mom was in the picture too?
- Yeah, the supermarket scene. - Right yeah.
- And then the lady who played our mother in the movie--
- Alexis. - Yeah Alexis.
I heard that it was supposed to be somebody else that day.
- The woman who was supposed to play Johnny's wife
somehow got sick on that day.
She couldn't come from New York City,
so a last moment decision, Alexis, the script girl.
I asked her if she could take it,
she did it, and she did a wonderful, wonderful job.
- She was fantastic. - I thought she was great.
- Yeah, she was amazing.
- She was really great.
- Get outta here!
- And she caught really the mood,
the essence of the mood of the crew.
- Get the fuck out of here!
- I mean it just came out, you know perfectly.
- And she made it easier for me, you know as well.
- And we knew her, and that felt good too.
- We knew her, yeah.
- The memories of them, sweet kids.
- Ah they were just wonderful, sweet kids and--
- [Boy] Daddy, Daddy!
- I enjoyed playing their father.
Hey, hey hey hey!
Yahoo!
- [Terry] During the scene, I was actually nervous
that I kept pulling my pants up,
you know out of just pure nervousness,
but it actually worked for the scene.
- [Tammy] Right.
- At the time there were two gas stations,
1976 in Connecticut.
One was too modern.
And then I saw this one.
I came to the guy and I said to the guy
can I shoot here and the guy says sure.
How much shall I pay you?
He said give me $50 a day.
And we shot it for a few days for $50 a day,
and by the way this same man I heard
that a few years later in the cold
of the winter in Connecticut
which become very cold there, they found him
sitting behind his desk in the office
in this very same gas station, frozen to death.
For the back in which he hits the axe with,
I think it was the back of a cow.
- I went to a butcher shop, and I got some spare ribs,
and then we had some extra floating blocks from the raft,
and I put the ribs onto that platform.
- We practiced the axe mark in my back
and my death scene on land.
- And I remember also that it was around
the last few days of the shoot,
and the sun was coming down early,
so we didn't have much time
and Yuri said let's get the back hit
with the axe very fast, or I'm gonna lose the light.
- Yes I do remember I had a hard time
with the axe, because it was not a real axe.
It was very lightweight.
- And then you know, it was a hot September, August,
it starts to get a little rank.
So I was hurrying Meir.
Come on, we gotta do this.
- They said that you have to hold onto it
a little bit stronger, so it looks like a real axe.
- And then as I was like swimming back to shore
and she was coming after me.
- So I remember we did it very fast.
We put the piece of meat on the ground
and we hit it with the axe.
- And they may have had a real axe at some other point.
Obviously they did when they put the axe into the meat.
- And there was blood sacks, just baggies
full of blood, and that's all it was.
- [Gunter] I just remember holding my breath
and playing dead, and then cut!
- That was a pretty good effect actually.
- And that was how the shot was taken.
- The hanging scene, Richard...
he was a terrific kid.
He was very nice.
Very pleasant, very quiet.
I found a harness at the surplus,
the Army surplus store.
It was a parachute harness, and we adapted it.
The noose was actually just rope wrapped around.
There was no way you could hang.
- I think I come from behind the tree and I say--
You came super-fast, Matthew.
And he looks around and there I am,
and then I play kind of a cat and mouse thing with him,
where he chases me down to where the other tree is.
Matthew, over here.
That was my set up, mhmm.
- I have no friends in town!
- I thought we were friends, remember, you asked me?
One of the hardest things in that hanging scene
was the seduction part, for me.
I could've given you a summer to remember
for the rest of your life.
Even though we'd already done these other scenes
where there's rape and all of that,
I still had to take my negligee thing like that.
You know I was like a little stressed about that.
I don't know why after all the other scenes.
- But you don't realize that the human body is very heavy.
How many grips did we have, we had three or four guys.
- It took four of us to hoist him up.
Otherwise you would need something
like a pulley or something like that.
- And he jerked, and he was terrific.
- The infamous bathtub scene.
Yes, that has become infamous.
- In the bathtub, I believe we gave Eron Tabor,
who plays Johnny, a little pump under the water
that he just presses, squeezes, and the blood comes out.
- We had red dye number two
was used with Karo syrup and water diluted
to make blood out of it,
so we had a gallon bottle of milk.
We drank the milk.
We had the bottle.
There was a hose running.
Joan Puma, the makeup girl,
we ran a little line, a hose,
behind Eron's butt.
- I had a real butcher knife.
We didn't mess around, we used the real stuff
and I told Eron I said I'm gonna put my hand
between you and the butcher knife,
because I certainly didn't want to cause anybody any harm.
- It was more technical.
It was about getting the blood pump hidden with suds
and executing that.
I was not concerned about her hurting me in the least.
- There was another two words I put in the film.
- You've got a weird, weird, sense of humor.
- Do I?
- And when Meir said cut, I said oh sorry
I didn't mean to put those two words in there,
and he said no no no no, that's fine, that was beautiful!
- Part of what I thought about who the character was
that I was deluded into thinking
that everything was fine,
and that we had gotten away with rape.
- Come on, I'll give you a hot bath.
- When Beriau, the assistant director,
when he had the bottle below, there was no blood,
and as soon as he raised it, it started pumping.
- It was squeezed and the blood squirted all over the place.
- So when Eron stood up, oh my god,
and as soon as Beriau said, I took his hand
and went up like this, up and down,
so the blood started squirting.
- And it came out so beautifully, so naturally,
that we didn't expect it to be so good.
Just out of his groin, splashing all over him.
- I don't remember if we did it in one take or two,
I don't remember, but you know,
we just did it.
It was almost like he was in a meditative state,
and he wasn't nervous or scared,
or if he was he didn't show it.
I felt nervous.
- Well the makeup guy that we had,
he wanted to have a condom with something stuffed in it
thrown in the sink with the knife,
and that's what that guy had the idea of doing,
and to me, with Meir's blessing,
it just, what for?
- Well, there's much more power to the theater of the mind.
- Yeah it's in the head.
- Theater of the mind, that it's in your imagination
rather than having it thrown in your face.
- You and I talked about that scene
and I said you don't need
anything like that, you really don't.
It's basically like you said, three shots.
Boom, knife goes under, then knife goes
in the thing, and then--
- She walks out.
(Johnny screaming)
Did you come with me to the church
when I came to speak with the priest?
- I remember you speaking
with the priest yes, with the minister.
I think there was something, the rumor spreading around town
that it was a porno, pornographic film or something.
- We had a production manager
that we hired before we hired you.
- I know who that was, I remember the guy,
I know the guy yep yep yep yep yep.
- We let him go.
Now we are unlucky, we hired you,
you came in, everything was wonderful
from you know first day.
- I had almost no prep time at all.
It was kind of very short.
- Yeah you came-- - But it worked.
- You came yeah--
- We did get a lot of prep work too.
- Right, and we are on location.
We shot the scene in the church,
and a few days later we get a call.
The pastor on the phone.
Mr. Zarchi, why didn't you tell me you're shooting a porno?
- Yes.
- I remember coming over, and I came into his room,
into his office, and I said to him
how did you get this news?
He said well somebody's in town
spreading the word that you're doing a porno.
Who is the guy?
And he gives me the name of the guy that I fired.
So imagine--
- I remember he was in town.
I think he sat down with me in that restaurant,
and he was really very bitter.
- I told him the story, what is the story about briefly,
and I ended by saying it's an eye for an eye,
you know tooth for a tooth. - It's a biblical story.
- Eye for an eye, it's a biblical story exactly,
and I said to him if you would like to,
I'll come this afternoon,
or come to our office and I will show you
all the scenes that we shot in the church,
or anything else you want to see.
The entire movie,
you know there's many many hours to see of dailies,
and if you don't like it, I'll give you back
the footage of the church and you can burn it.
He stood up with a smile and he said I trust you,
I believe you, and he added,
listen he said, if from now on
anybody bothers you or if you need any help
or you have any problem in this town,
have 'em call me.
So now we got the church behind us as well,
the blessing of the church as well.
We started the editing mid-September 1976.
Immediately a few days after we came back from Connecticut
from the location,
and we finished editing and mixing
and everything else in February of 1978,
so it took about a year and four or five months
to get the movie fully edited and in the can, as they say.
We showed the film to the distributors
and film buyer in New York City.
And there were independent distributors there,
and obviously some representatives
of the major motion pictures.
Paramount, et cetera.
One woman ran out of the theater,
yes, when the rape on the rock took place.
One distributor offered me $10,000
as a minimum guarantee
if I'll give 'em distribution,
and I didn't want it.
I rejected him, and that was it.
Nobody else was offering anything else.
And I don't know if I mentioned it to you,
when everybody rejected it,
including the lady who came from Paramount.
When I called her and asked her why,
she rejected it she said,
I was insulted by it.
- [Terry] With no one interested in this film,
Meir, with Camille in full support,
continues to search for a US distributor with no success.
Was there a romantic affair going on
between Camille Keaton and Meir Zarchi?
My sister would tell me that there was,
but I was too young to really understand
what this all meant anyway.
Then, in May of 1978 and to my total delight,
my dad and Camille tied the knot
in the New York courthouse
and celebrated their marriage at an event
with many attendees shortly afterwards.
Camille was wonderful to me.
She became my stepmom, and I really enjoyed
showing her off to my friends.
Low on cash and still in need of a distribution deal,
Meir decides to take the film
to the Cannes Film Festival in May of 1978,
shortly after their marriage,
and by his side and supporting him
and the film is Camille Keaton.
And together, they created a buzz
and the film made sales to countries
such as Japan, Greece, Scandinavia, Holland,
and a few other territories.
Camille had a successful career
in the Italian film industry in the early '70s,
so this certainly helped the foreign sales market
for Day of the Woman,
but now he's back in the US
and although Day of the Woman made some decent money
from the foreign sales, his biggest territory,
the United States, still remained
without a single distributor who wanted his film.
Not giving up, Meir decides to invest his own money
and hires a sub-distributor in the south
to book about 20 screens with the hopes
to further release the picture in more theaters
and larger cities across the country,
and finally in November of 1978,
the film was in the general public's hands
for the first time in the United States as Day of the Woman.
But, without having the proper budget for advertising
to get people into the seats,
Day of the Woman was short-lived
and eventually faded from the big screen.
- First of all, there was no money for publicity whatsoever.
Only we made commercial, TV spot,
less than about 50 seconds.
- [Narrator] Day of the Woman.
A mature subject for mature audiences only.
- We ran this the night, or two nights
before the movie opened in about 20 movie theaters
in the south, and at that time
in all the other movie theaters
around the area, Halloween was playing.
- [Bill] That's right, Irwin Yablans.
- Yeah but Halloween had money.
And I had nothing.
- You have to remember there was a day
that we didn't know if the film
was ever gonna get a release.
- [Terry] Now, still without a single distributor
in the US that was interested in Day of the Woman,
and not succeeding at self-distribution,
an entire year would go by,
but throughout this time period
Meir doesn't give up on hopes to find the US distributor,
and in November of 1979 he travels with Camille
to the Miami Film Festival,
and there his luck would finally change.
A couple of distributors, including someone
from the Jerry Gross Organization,
took notice of Meir's film.
- Jerry had a associate of his by the name of Mary,
and Mary had seen the film,
and she put the producer together with Jerry
and they set up a meeting.
And that's how Jerry became aware of the film.
- [Terry] Then, in January of 1980,
Meir visits Jerry Gross at his offices
in Century City to discuss a possible distribution deal
for Day of the Woman.
- And I sat there and he said Meir, give me this movie
and then he stood up and he said
this movie shall get the Oscar
for the best independent movie ever made.
- We just really didn't know how it was gonna end up.
But Meir never gave up.
- Jerry Gross was very smart.
He had the ability to see a film
and immediately in his own mind,
understand how the film was to be marketed.
He understood the benefit of producing a film
and getting it out there,
and bringing the audience in through advertising,
and it's highly unusual for a distributor to pick up a film
that has already failed,
and having the foresight that the audience was out there,
but they needed to be drawn in with a new title,
new campaign, and enough advertising
to get the people interested in it.
- [Terry] In March of 1980, Meir Zarchi and Jerry Gross
signed the distribution deal,
and Jerry Gross had the right
to change the title and the design layout of the poster
to anything he wanted.
When Meir heard the news from Jerry Gross
about the new title, I Spit on Your Grave,
his face dropped.
Meir hated the title then,
and he's not a big fan of it still today,
but nonetheless he was thrilled to have a distribution deal.
- I Spit on Your Grave, it seemed like it was a little dirty
and it almost demeaned it.
- I was horrified with it.
- But now, I realize that
it energized it.
- As I Spit on Your Grave it became a horror film,
and so it attracted that audience,
which seems to be the audience that embraced it.
- That I think was a hook that hooked a lot of people
into the film, and once they saw it and passed it along,
it just brought that uniformity in,
you know it added that final refinement
to the whole product.
- I think the original, the I Spit on Your Grave title
came from one of Jerry's employees
by the name of Billy Fine.
- Billy Fine told me personally
how the title came about.
He said Jerry Gross went to the beach
to be reclusive and by himself
to get the inspiration,
and suddenly the title came to him,
I Spit on Your Grave.
- I thought oh my Lord,
I Spit on Your Grave?
What has that got, what does that mean?
What has that got to do with the movie?
I didn't like it very much.
- [Terry] With the new title in place,
and a new campaign in the works,
Jerry Gross begins booking I Spit on Your Grave
at theaters in the Chicago area.
- I was told that there was 25 prints available,
and that we could use those prints.
The only problem that we had to fix
was we had to put a new title
being I Spit on Your Grave
on all of those release prints.
They were the exact same prints
that had failed before,
but now it had the new title, new print campaign,
new trailer, new radio spots.
- [Terry] Doing away with the old campaign and title,
and putting his creative mind to work on the new campaign,
in May of 1980, Jerry Gross hires a young model
and off they go to Griffith Park in Los Angeles
for the photo shoot for the now iconic poster.
- I think it was probably a combination of Jerry
and the ad campaign company
that did the shoot.
They had a number of girls come in,
and they selected this girl.
- Yeah I said to Meir I said why didn't they ask me to
do the poster?
I'm in the film.
Why wouldn't they call me to do it?
- [Terry] Rumors have been widespread
that it's a young Demi Moore who modeled
for the cover of I Spit on Your Grave.
- I know for a fact that is Demi Moore's butt on the poster
because she told me so.
- Meir has never cracked about it.
He's never really said who's in the poster,
so I don't know.
- You know I met her when she was a model
and she wasn't famous.
She had a really great modeling career.
The camera loves her.
You know I'd always be looking at her book,
and there was always new stuff in it,
so one day I'm sitting there
across the table from her, across the kitchen table
and I'm flipping through the book
and these flattened video boxes came tumbling out,
and it was I Spit on Your Grave,
and I was like, why do you have these boxes in your book?
She's like oh yeah, I posed for the poster,
and I was like oh okay,
and it just kind of always stuck in my brain.
- I am a DVD and Blu-ray producer
for Anchor Bay Entertainment, and Anchor Bay
picked up the rights to I Spit on Your Grave
and we did a little bit of color correction
and work on those masters.
- And then when RJ and I started dating,
I started seeing more exploitation movies
and I Spit on Your Grave was one of 'em,
and just offhandedly one day I was like oh yeah,
and you know that's Demi Moore's butt on the cover right?
- When Meir was there looking at the master,
I had a poster of I Spit on Your Grave,
like a mini poster and I asked him
kind of sheepishly like
would you mind autographing this for us?
So he was autographing it
and he said you know this is
Demi Moore's butt that I'm signing here.
- And I recognize it, like I said I've seen her butt!
I've been to the gym with her, I showered with the girl,
it's her butt, trust me.
That's Demi Moore's butt okay?
Trust me.
- We had put out a DVD for a film called Spread,
about a year and a half prior to that.
Spread stars Ashton Kutcher.
He came in to do the audio commentary,
and in order to get him to come in
I had to go through his agent.
So I figured oh there's,
I actually have sort of a direct connection
to that family because he and Demi were married at the time,
so she was kind enough to actually pass it along
to Demi's people and I got a very nice email in response
saying hi RJ, Kelly forwarded along the below request,
and although she remembers doing it
and certainly finds the humor in this,
she unfortunately is not able to participate.
Thanks for sending this request along.
Wish you all the best on this project, Lisa.
- [Terry] With the new campaign in place,
Jerry Gross releases I Spit on Your Grave
in 27 theaters in Chicago in July of 1980,
with plans of opening in larger cities
and more theaters across the country.
- It did very well.
At that time, we were also playing a lot of drive-ins.
The drive-in grosses were very good,
the theater grosses were very good.
It wasn't the easiest film to get booked into the theaters,
but Jerry was able to do that.
- [Terry] The violent nature of the film
drew the attention of film critics Roger Ebert
and Gene Siskel, because of their belief that
it glorifies rape and will drive men to rape women,
they dubbed it the worst movie ever made,
and spearheaded what became
a global campaign to bury the film.
- I dread going to these kinds of movies.
It really has become the most depressing part
of my job as a film critic.
- And there we are in total agreement
as far as I'm concerned.
- Siskel and Ebert, I know we had trouble
more with Roger Ebert because he wrote a couple of reviews
that weren't very flattering about the film.
- I went to see I Spit on Your Grave
and I was sitting next to a fairly nicely dressed
middle aged man maybe in his fifties or sixties,
who was talking back to the screen
with lines like boy, she's really asking for it now
or you know there's a rape scene coming up,
this will be a good one and so forth.
This guy is, to my way of thinking,
a vicarious sex criminal.
- [Terry] Their vigorous campaign,
including standing in front of the movie theater
encouraging ticket buyers to stay away from this film,
resulted in the movie being pulled off the screens
only a week after opening in Chicago.
It also prompted many other theaters
to decline its booking.
- But you know Meir was always there for me,
and very supportive and he said
don't take offense.
Well how can you not take offense
when two guys, or I don't know if it was both of 'em
or one of 'em, stands in front of the theater
telling the people don't go in and see this movie.
- Well, we just pushed ahead.
I mean we kept booking it into areas
that we were allowed to.
- [Terry] With Jerry Gross no longer booking
I Spit on Your Grave theatrically,
and all the negative reviews from many critics
including Variety Magazine,
the film could have easily been buried,
until a new industry began called the home video market.
- It was just the start of the VHS, the video market.
It was just beginning.
- [Terry] It might have been the beginning
of the video industry, but December of 1980
was the end of Meir and Camille's marriage.
- Their relationship was completely crazy.
They, the two of them would get into these fights
and it would be screaming and throwing things.
I mean their fights were pretty,
pretty out there and everybody heard it,
the neighbors heard it, so it didn't work.
- Well somebody called me one day
and said Camille, your movie is out on video.
I said no, it can't be, it's impossible.
You must be joking.
She showed me a copy of Billboard
and I said well there it is.
- [Terry] The movie quickly climbed
to the Billboard's top 40 bestselling video cassettes list
for 14 consecutive weeks.
Billboard included I Spit on Your Grave
in their number one award for the
100 bestselling video cassettes of 1981.
Now, thanks to the breakthrough of the home video market,
I Spit on Your Grave was being viewed by audiences
across the United States and Canada,
within the comfort of their own home,
and the controversy surrounding this film
was just beginning to see the daylight.
- What is the worst movie you've ever seen?
- Worst movie you've ever seen, that'd be hard 'cause you--
- I always just give the same answer to that question,
I Spit on Your Grave is usually my stock answer.
- [Terry] Siskel and Ebert may have been successful
at convincing and influencing theater owners
to pull the movie off the screen and refuse its booking,
but they could not hold back the public's curiosity
to see for themselves what two of America's top critics
were shouting and screaming about.
People flocked to their local video stores
searching for I Spit on Your Grave.
- Here for example is an innocent sunbather
in I Spit on Your Grave, watch what happens to her.
- [Terry] Siskel and Ebert's plan
to bury this film backfired with a vengeance.
All this hysteria caused a run on local video rental stores
for copies of Meir's film.
With the title now successfully selling all over the world,
the controversy grew even stronger.
Certain territories at their own discretion
distributed the film
under the title of I Spit on Your Grave
or Day of the Woman, and some territories
gave it an entirely different title altogether,
but regardless of the title,
the film found its audiences,
or the audiences found this film.
- [Host] Mrs. Joan Austin was so convinced
that watching video nasties
led to her 17 year old son committing rape.
- [Terry] The censorship board in many countries
started taking notice of these types of movies,
and many countries ended up banning I Spit on Your Grave
due to its graphic depiction of sexual violence.
In the United Kingdom, I Spit on Your Grave
was number one on the video nasties list.
The term video nasties
characterized motion pictures on video that the
British Board of Film Classifications banned.
Simply possessing a video cassette of this film in Britain
was a crime punishable by law.
Quite a few people received stiff fines,
and were sent to jail for even
keeping a copy in their own homes.
In September of 1983, Friday Live,
a popular British primetime television show
that deals with current topics
devoted its entire 90 minute program
to a discussion on the subject of video nasties,
after a 17 year old teenage boy raped two women,
blaming his actions after viewing I Spit on Your Grave.
Meir was invited to London to meet face to face
with the mother of the accused teen on live TV,
and Meir accepted the invitation.
- [Interviewer] Would you consider perhaps the case
of Mrs. Austin's son an extreme case?
Because you've heard her very personal, very powerful plea
for something to be done
about the accessibility of violent videos.
- She herself told me that she's not quite sure
this is the real answer to her son's acts.
- [Terry] The film has since been the focus
of frequent comments in the media,
and has been reviewed, written about,
and analyzed in scores of books, magazines,
and newspapers throughout the world.
- I was over at some people's house
and they happened to have the TV on
and all of a sudden they said and I Spit on Your Grave
is the most disgusting film ever made.
- [Terry] While some critics categorized the film
as anti-feminist, others, among them
movie critic Joe Bob Briggs, claim it to be
the most feminist movie ever made.
- Ebert the wimp and Siskel the simp,
they call this the most disgusting movie
in the history of mankind.
- As soon as they say that doesn't that induce them
to want to go see it even more?
- Oh absolutely!
- [Terry] The popular TV cartoon show The Simpsons
has made references to the film in two separate episodes.
- Or when I want to see drive-in movies for free.
- Sometimes I was hoping that it would not come out,
I have to admit, because my parents,
and especially my grandmother,
you know she was very religious
and, but it did come out
and it stayed out.
- [Terry] In 1984, my father was working
on his second independent feature film, Family and Honor.
What made you make this film after you did
a film that was in a different genre?
- Oh I pay my dues, all right.
I married your sister didn't I?
Yeah.
- Is that why you rushed to make our sister pregnant,
so you could buy your way into our business?
- [Terry] So you went from doing a so-called revenge movie
to a complete different ballgame.
What made you do that?
Why didn't you do another horror movie?
- Because I Spit on Your Grave was not a horror movie.
It's a horrifying movie.
It's completely out of the box of a horror movie.
Just because it has revenge in there, it's a horror movie?
I just wanted to tell a good story.
Story is the thing.
Story is the one that matters more than everybody.
More than the big star, more than the big production,
more than the money.
Simple, good story.
- [Terry] Through the beauty of modern social media,
I reached out to many viewers
from around the world to get their point of view
on I Spit on Your Grave.
- The cover on the VHS box just sprung out at me,
I mean you see a half-naked chick on there
carrying a big buck knife,
holding it by the blade with half her ass hanging out.
- Is it unfair that it was widely known
by Ebert and Siskel that it's the worst film ever made?
Is that like totally unfair?
- I wouldn't say it was unfair
if anything that those quotes catapulted that film
to levels way fucking beyond.
- Started to get around as being
one of the worst films ever made.
- I know people say it's the worst picture ever made.
I mean at least that's according to Siskel and Ebert.
It's the worst picture ever made.
- The best publicity that's ever said about this movie
is that it's the worst picture ever made,
so everybody was curious to see the movie.
- Of course.
- But I think that his review definitely
did the opposite probably of what he wanted it to,
because I think that review became so famous,
and I know it brought so many people to the film
and I think it still does.
- I did run into Roger Ebert a couple times,
and I approached Roger
about the review that he gave the film.
He says well I may have been
a little harsh on it at that time.
- There was a lot of controversy about it,
but that's what helped stimulate the attention,
and even the negative publicity that was created
helped to make it what it became.
- Telling people oh this will make you rape,
or putting these terrible, awful
red flags in front of it,
I think that that was their way
of trying to get people to just not watch it at all
to protect them from
having to witness something so horrific.
- The fact that he took on this attack,
he made it so personalized I think is part of
what created the aura around the movie.
Without trying to promote the movie,
he was the biggest promoter of the movie.
- Oh Roger Ebert,
I met him at a function and I said
I did the picture that he's responsible for its success.
Which one?
I said yeah, that's the one.
No, yes, no, yes.
Yes, that's the one.
I Spit on Your Grave?
I said yes.
Did they really fuck on that rock?
- You know people would ask me sometimes
well did you really get raped?
You know, no, I did not
and those guys are not dead,
I didn't really kill them.
- I never saw it as an exploitation film.
I mean, when you ask about exploitation.
No that never crossed my mind.
- I think it is a feminist film
and that's what it was designed to be.
- So yeah if anybody thinks negatively,
hey they're not seeing the story.
- You know, even calling it horror,
it's really not horror.
You know it's more revenge genre.
I think sometimes we tend to broad-base
and put things into categories.
It's, there are movies that are being made today
because Meir made this movie.
- You know people ask me these questions.
They say, did you know that you were
making a cult film at the time?
Well I didn't even know what a cult movie was at that time.
- First time we ever saw the film
was a matinee on a Sunday.
The rape scene was chilling enough to just view it.
But what made it even more unbelievably frightening
was the fact that people in the audience
were cheering on the rapists.
They were hooting, howling,
get her, fuck the shit outta her!
Fuck the shit outta her, beat the shit out of her!
This was like different guys throughout the theater
were screaming these things out.
I cannot tell you how loud it got into that theater.
- If guys want to howl and love watching a scene
of a girl getting raped, then they equally have to
enjoy the comeuppance of these guys.
- Then, once she got the first guy,
and got him back, it was dead silence
like we were sitting in an empty movie theater on our own.
- [Johnny] It's so sweet it's painful.
- Like they themselves had just been castrated or something.
- [Johnny] Oh shit look what she's done to me!
Oh god!
- It's in your face, and it actually
assaults the audience in my opinion.
- Oh she's a wild one!
- And provokes them into all kinds of feelings
running from the theater,
having the men cheer the rapists on,
and the women feel some gratification too
when she comes back and gets revenge.
- They did everything to her
that they would do to an animal, and probably more.
- Broad's all yours, come on!
Come on!
- Not now, not now.
- Asshole, we got her for you, come on!
- I saw I Spit on Your Grave about a year
after I myself had been raped.
I went on this huge binge, I was fortunate enough
that I grew up next to
one of those old ma and pa video stores.
They gave me I Spit on Your Grave,
I took it home, and I probably watched it
by myself six times in a two day span.
I kept watching it and kept watching it.
- Like to me the movie was almost like a porno movie.
It was you know the girls are walking around
95% of the time totally naked.
- And when you watch it you will understand,
and can understand why it was successful
because your interest in the girl and the story
moves along at the right pace.
- I also thought that the overall pacing of the movie
was like very very slow.
- And it hits all of the really good screenplay spots.
The setup, the conflict, the revenge,
the resolution to the problem.
It just is a very very well-structured screenplay.
- Linda Sommers?
- Linda Sommers.
- The name doesn't ring a bell.
- Oh, fake name as if a girl
by the name of Linda Sommers wrote it.
A woman wrote these graphic scenes
so nobody will question her motivation,
a woman writing about rape, et cetera.
- Look at this, oh my gosh!
Would you look at this?
Wow.
- And then we went on location
and quite a few times they asked me,
Linda Sommers is she coming?
I mean well, we want to meet Linda Sommers,
we want to meet Linda Sommers,
I said she'll be here, she'll be here.
- Wow you know, that's something that I don't remember.
- Yes, Housatonic Revenge, now that it comes back
I think is how we kind of,
how we got familiar with it
and then he said well, just a working title.
- Finally I said to them Linda Sommers
is coming today, she is here already.
They said who is she, where is she?
It's me I said.
- And the writer is probably very macho
and has sort of a macho attitude towards women.
That would be my impression.
Just based upon what I see in this movie.
He doesn't really understand women per se,
and I think that's why it causes this controversy
you know, among feminists
because that's not what they see as you know,
how a woman is empowered
by being like a man.
- It's an incredibly well-made film,
especially again with the editing,
the choice about the soundtrack.
I mean to me, those decisions make it more an art film
than just the typical exploitation film.
- Makes you squirm in your seat
what with the film having no music
and your focus is entirely
on your other senses, your hearing.
(boat engine roars)
What they're saying or the sound effects.
(bike clicks)
What you're seeing, and feeling.
- You don't have any music at all in that picture.
- Not at all, no music at all in the whole movie.
- Yeah, and it's a very rare thing with a movie,
especially a suspense movie.
No music at all.
- For three consecutive weeks, I was looking for music
and sat for hours every day
and trying to match it to the movie,
and everything was rejected.
Spoiling the visuals--
- It would take away from the--
- Yeah, it took away so at the end of the third week Alex,
who did all the sound effects,
wonderful sound effects in the movie,
Alex told me Meir, the screen tells you
that you don't need the music.
So don't put the music, just forget it
and I said Alex you know what, you're right.
And no music.
- It was just a little riff.
♪ Da nah nah nah ♪
♪ Wah wah wah wah wah wah ♪
(harmonica music)
Meir picked up on that and said hey,
why don't we use that there?
(harmonica music)
I think I must have heard it somewhere,
but I had been playing with that tune in my head
for some time, just as a warmup
kind of little way I get myself warmed up.
It was just something mysterious about it and I liked it.
I feel like the whole film kind of,
from that great opening shot where she's in the city
and you have all of the street sounds
and then boom, there's that quick cut
and she's in the country driving
and you just have the sounds of nature and the trees.
- He made it on you know,
as an independent filmmaker.
I think independent filmmakers have an edge
because they're making it in their style
and they're telling their story.
They're not dictated to by a studio.
When this movie was made,
movies were not being made like this.
You have to understand that.
You know you look back in time,
and you see a film now that so many people
in so many ways have copied or emulated,
but at the time that Meir made this movie,
people weren't doing this,
which is why it was so gut wrenching
and so it kind of grabbed you by the throat and didn't let go.
It created such an audience uproar.
You know people either loved it or they hated it.
- I love the sequence where she's crawling back to the house
and he has that quick cut where she's no longer outside nude
but she's inside clothed,
and she's kind of crawling toward the camera,
and you don't know she's crawling towards a phone yet.
It looks like she's crawling toward the audience,
almost as if please let me climb out
of this place that I'm at.
You know I want to be back in the world where you are.
I want to be back in the modern world
where I'm safe again.
- I do try to call the cops
where I'm struggling to get up there,
you know from A to B.
And, I'm starting to make the phone call
and I finish making the phone call,
and that's when the phone is kicked.
- [Man] Hello?
(woman screams)
- Every time that I've seen that scene,
I go like oh!
- It holds the audience riveted
on what's going to happen to this female,
and don't forget it's a film where
very very few films existed
where the female gets revenge.
- The fact that most movies that are of that genre--
- Take off your clothes.
- You don't have to force me!
- There's usually the male, someone who is a friend
of the person who gets taken advantage of
will come back
and seek revenge,
and this was done with the woman,
and that had never really been done before
and I liked that very much about the film.
- I thought of it as a revenge film,
like a vigilante that's going back
and taking justice into their own hands.
- I noticed that what he did with Camille
was very very directorial.
She would be removed pretty much
as just part of the technique of directing us.
I got the sense a Svengali type thing
happening with Meir and her.
You know on set you think oh my god,
he's telling her to do everything.
Look left, look right, look shocked, look surprised,
open up, blah blah blah, look here, look there.
And she would do it, but then in all honesty
once I looked at the footage I thought, wow.
(harmonica music)
You know?
She had a nice relationship with the camera, and it worked.
- Restless days,
sleepless nights.
- They never sexualize Camille Keaton.
She's nude, but it's never framed or designed
where you would think this is an erotic experience.
It's a very violent, ugly experience.
- It was more so because for the first time I felt
that a film had really genuinely captured
the horror and the different emotions
that a victim goes through after being attacked.
- One of the key shots for me in the film
is after the second rape sequence
where she's left sprawled out over the rock,
and he just lingers on that shot.
That's like 20, 25 seconds.
You know and a lot of people have complained about that,
but to me it's like he's asking the audience,
just think about what you've seen,
let it sink in, and let the horror of it sink in.
- A young woman came up to me and started talking to me
about the film, and she said
you have no idea what this film meant to me,
and she started to cry.
To think that okay, it is appreciated
by women that have been victims themselves.
- And it was the first time that I ever saw a woman
come out of a situation like this
as anything more than just this broken, fragile creature
that you should be giving your pity to.
- [Jeremy] There's a great shot at the beginning
that I absolutely love where she's going skinny dipping,
you know and he starts it out kind of in exploitation mode
where she's taking off her clothes
and you think okay, here we go.
- I think the writer is exploiting women in this movie,
because you know he has like a five minute shot
of her walking nude into the water.
Why is that there?
That's at the beginning.
- But then he suddenly cuts away to a long shot
so you can't see her anymore,
and then there's this weird zoom back
which is great, and again just lingers
and you never get the edit back to her that you expect.
You know, you never get the typical exploitation
okay here she is swimming around.
He just sits there, so you get the idea that
you know is somebody watching her,
or are we here to just watch her?
I mean it just points out kind of that male gaze
that's almost always in movies.
- Now this writer I think was looking at a woman
from the point of view of a man,
and his interpretation of the female character
was what would a man do in a situation like this?
And so she was very masculinized
because the writer didn't understand women.
- I will firmly believe that it is
the most painfully misunderstood film
that is in existence.
- If I want to see a horror movie,
I want to see a horror movie that makes me
jump out of my seat screaming.
Shocks me.
- I think people get so distracted by the length of the rape
that they fail to see the real important message
underneath it of the empowerment.
The fact that you know,
victims are rape are not necessarily
victims, they're survivors.
- I definitely think it empowers women.
There's gonna be violence towards women
until the end of time.
- If you survive breast cancer,
you survive yes, and it's wonderful,
and everyone's happy for you.
If you're a rape survivor
it's not polite dinner conversation
and you're not gonna find a rape survivor magnet ribbon
that you can put on the back of your car.
- That's when I began to see the movie
as having well, it must have some redeeming qualities
and that wasn't the first or the only time
that women have come up to me
and there are some female fans out there big time.
- Just watch and listen and learn something from it.
- In class we're taught about various different theories
and one of the main theories in the horror genre
is called the final girl.
- I do think it makes for some
controversial discussion topics, which I understand
that it's being used in universities
to talk about feminism, which I think it has
some interesting aspects to it.
- So when I had to apply the final girl to a paper,
I thought I Spit on Your Grave is absolutely perfect
because Camille is the epitome of a final girl.
- These are one of the kinds of things that we talk about.
What makes for a good story?
What makes characters have more depth?
- This film has a lot of hate,
and it has a lot of love,
and so I decided to take a stance,
my own personal stance on this film
regardless of my grandfather being the director of the film.
I really saw it as a feminist film.
When I was about six months old,
I guess I auditioned for the role of baby Stephanie
in the film Jason Goes to Hell, Friday the 13th Part 9.
Well at the time, of course I don't remember it,
but I do know that my uncle Terry was involved
in casting, and he was a casting director.
He helped me get the part as baby Stephanie,
and I guess they had to have a baby that didn't cry
very often and I was that baby.
- Little girl?
She's beautiful.
(somber music)
- When we first started out,
we were talking about doing a sequel.
It could have gone either way, as a remake,
but initially it was a sequel for years.
Being independent, we felt that we had to find
the right deal that would give us what we wanted,
and it took 15 years to do that remake.
- Sarah Butler, I give her credit
for taking on the role of Jennifer Hills.
- I've always believed that what Meir created
is more than one movie.
He created a concept,
and to take that concept and to roll it out
took somebody with vision.
- Through Gary and because of Gary,
we got the deal with CineTel Films.
- And we were very fortunate that CineTel,
yeah they had the backing of Anchor Bay,
but you know, Paul Hertzberg and Lisa Hansen
are creative people, they're independent people.
They saw a vision, but it's more in the vision that I had
and perhaps Meir had, he has to answer that,
but I've always felt that this is a franchise.
- The revenge scenes were like
a little bit too much for me to watch.
It's like ooh.
- I think he did a very good job.
I think he deserves the credit he's gotten for it.
I think he's a really good director.
He understands the genre.
I think he understood what he was dealing with.
I don't think he just came in cold.
I think he did his homework.
He understood what Meir had created,
and he also wanted to treat it with respect
because there was a respect factor.
The new movie was not made by Meir, okay?
Although he had input into the movie.
Meir's movie is Meir's movie,
and that's why when you compare them
there were certainly comparable aspects
and elements to the movies in terms of the storyline,
but the way it's executed is totally different.
They wanted to just change it enough a little bit
to make it more a little bit contemporary
to today's kind of feel in movies.
- You gut them.
- And that's what Steven brought to the party.
- And I said I have to direct that.
Mostly being in fear of it getting in hands
that would not do it justice for the fans.
- I can't wait to hear you and see you
after the movie is over,
because I'm not the most important thing here, you are.
(audience applauds)
We made the remake with them,
we made the so-called sequel, I Spit on Your Grave 2.
I say so-called which is not actually an extension
of either the original or the remake,
but yet the second in the series.
(man screaming)
- [Woman] It's date night.
(man screaming)
(intense music)
(women yelps)
- Yet we still have the original sequel that I've written
the rights which I didn't give to CineTel.
The sequel written by me that eventually
I know we'll do it.
- [Terry] It's been over 20 years since Meir Zarchi
and cinematographer Yuri Haviv
have been in touch with each other.
A phone conversation was arranged,
and I recorded their reunion on camera.
- Nuri!
(speaks foreign language)
- [Yuri] I love you too.
- Oh Nuri I miss you.
I miss you, you are part of my life.
You're a part of my blood,
and you're part of my flesh.
- [Yuri] Thank you very much, thank you I love you too.
- I'll never forget that when we shot the scene
of the character of Jennifer being raped,
sodomized on the rock.
- [Yuri] Yes yes yes I remember.
- [Meir] And one of the gaffers or the chief gaffer--
- [Yuri] Yes.
- Suddenly threw whatever tool he has in his hand,
he said I'm quitting, I can't take it anymore.
(Yuri laughs)
- [Yuri] Yeah yeah yeah yeah.
- And I'll never forget how you turned to me
and you whispered into my ear
and you said the sequence works.
(both laugh)
- [Yuri] You remember when Tony on the top of me,
and he is pressing on me, he's killing me,
and I am shooting him and shooting him,
his face coming woo woo woo,
but I am shooting.
(both laughing)
It's okay, it was beautiful days.
I hope we can repeat it together.
I hope we will be together again.
And I enjoyed every minute from it.
- The story I have goes back to Kent, Connecticut.
Should I go back to Kent, Connecticut to do it there?
- [Yuri] Yes.
- Under one condition.
You shoot the movie.
- [Yuri] Okay.
- You will, you will? - No problem.
- Oh I would love it. - No problem.
Meir, do it again.
And if you need me, I would love to.
(soothing music)
- [Terry] As for Richard Pace, Anthony Nichols,
Gunter Kleemann, and Eron Tabor?
My father always spoke very highly of all four actors.
- I was brought up in the Mennonite culture,
which meant no television, no movies.
Yes, my parents were very unhappy
that I went into show business,
and it is the reason that I changed my name.
- My parents knew, they were really cool with it.
Yeah you're an actor, you're doing an acting film.
- I thought it would open possibly the door to
being a film actor.
- My expectations out of this movie were experience.
- I'm actually decently proud of my work,
but what it has become,
I don't want my kids to see it really.
To see me like that.
So I do have some regrets for taking it on
and that it became what it became.
I didn't expect it to become what it turned into.
- I never had any regrets taking on this role.
- I found that it pegged me in a,
as a character that I am so far removed from
that I did not want to pursue it any more after that.
- It was work, and it was fun.
- No I have no desire to revisit this,
even to look at my own performance.
- It gives me a legacy that say,
that yes I committed my life to acting
but I got a little product that stays,
that became something.
So of all of the people who came and went in this industry,
I can say I'm a part of a film that became a cult classic.
And I can carry that with me to my grave.
- Look at this guy, a youngster.
A youngster.
- [Meir] 39. - He looks like a rabbi.
Look at him. - [Terry] He does right?
So he started without a beard
and he ended up with the beard huh?
- [Meir And Bill] Yeah.
What memories come to your mind when you see that picture?
(Camille laughs)
- I don't know if I can say this on camera!
I have nothing but fond memories of this man.
Well, there might have been a couple exceptions.
This is when we were on our honeymoon.
We were in Italy, wow!
Look at this one, oh my gosh yeah.
- [Terry] When did you marry Meir?
- [Camille] 1978.
- [Terry] Was there a spark on the actual set?
Was there a romantic spark then?
Or was the spark a little bit after?
Tell me about that.
- Well, you know how one thing just leads to another
on a rape and revenge movie.
I read that somewhere.
No, we just became really good friends
and there had to be a spark there,
and you never know.
I may have just--
- [Terry] There's gotta be a spark right there as well.
- Who is this, who is this woman?
- Ah!
- Who is-- - There he is!
- You didn't tell me.
- Look at him, here he is right here!
What a surprise!
- You're playing a trick on me.
They didn't tell me.
How are you? - Hey!
- What a surprise. - Yeah!
- What a surprise.
And I said to Camille, we're walking on the beach,
hot summer day,
desperate,
but not discouraged.
And I said to Camille,
one day they'll discover what kind of a film it is.
We'll make it, we'll make it, just patient.
But I think that Camille
was a little bit more pessimistic than I am.
- Yes.
Yeah I was worried.
- Her father Glenn, Glenn Keaton
was a pilot.
- He was a Navy pilot during the second World War.
- He was a Navy pilot on an aircraft carrier,
and he was doing also night flights and night bombing,
and her mother was a very beautiful woman, Janice.
Very gentle, spoke with a deep southern accent.
- [Camille] Yes.
- Both of them are gone, my parents are gone also.
- [Camille] Did they ever see the movie?
- My parents?
If they would see this movie, they would disown me.
- [Terry] What about that last shot
of you just riding that motorboat
with a real serious expression,
but you give that little smile?
Now was that Meir's direction?
- Yeah I told her to do that. - Yeah.
- To just give me a little little little smile,
very little. - Yeah.
- No more than that.
Just an ounce.
And they repeated that little smile
in the remake, and they repeated it again
with the so-called sequel, I Spit on Your Grave 2,
when she at the end the last scene she
walks toward the gates of the American Consulate,
the American Embassy in Sofia, Bulgaria,
that little faint smile.
(dramatic music)
- [Terry] Camille did this movie need to be remade?
- No.
- [Terry] Was it good that they did?
- Yes.
- [Terry] Okay tell me why, in your opinion.
- [Camille] Well, for my I guess selfish reasons
it brought more attention to the original
I Spit on Your Grave,
and also gave a different slant to it
and I don't think it really had to be remade.
- We can keep on talking for hours
on you know, but basically--
- But this is really the story.
I mean what we said to you
is the story of how this all evolved
and became what it became.
This movie is not going away.
- 50 years from now,
people can walk by my grave
and the epitaph will be you can spit on my grave.
- And on that grave there will be a 3D representation
of Meir telling you people that.
(both laugh)
- [Terry] So what's my father up to nowadays?
After three marriages and three divorces,
Meir is enjoying the company of his fiancée, Tsipi,
and the two of them have been together for over 20 years.
When you saw his movie for the first time,
many years ago, did you change your opinion about him,
what did you think?
- No it was a little bit shocking.
- A little bit? - Yeah.
- But you told me once that when you saw the movie
for the first time you said my goodness,
this is a dangerous man.
What kind of a man am I meeting--
- Can I say this in the-- - Of course you can say it.
- I want to say how good man you are.
- No no no I'm a bad man.
- I don't want to say that!
- I'm evil, bad, say the truth.
- [Terry] Aside from executive producing the films
involved with the growing franchise,
and seen here at the premiere of
I Spit on Your Grave Part 2,
and here in 2015 on the set of I Spit on Your Grave Part 3
with Sarah Butler, Meir is always keeping busy,
and has some new and exciting projects in the works,
and toward the end of making this documentary,
I had to put it on hold to help continue my father's legacy
by producing I Spit on Your Grave Deja Vu,
bringing back Camille Keaton as Jennifer Hills
with Meir Zarchi directing.
- Okay stay on him, and a little bit more, little bit more.
Just in case, and cut.
- [Terry] It was a long journey
trying to get Deja Vu produced,
but that's another story on its own,
and in 2018 David Maguire's newly released book
I Spit on Your Grave examines why the film
still continues to provoke fierce debate 40 years on,
and the very first paragraph
of the introduction in this book
pretty much sums it all up.
There is no denying that I Spit on Your Grave
deserves to be considered
the most controversial film to hit the world,
the most talked about film in cinema history
from its unflinching subject matter,
its battles with censors and mauling by critics,
the picketing of screenings by feminists,
and the politicians who deemed it
a corrupting influence on society.
It is a film that continues to divide opinion
and inflame passions.
It is, depending on your point of view,
either the most powerful or repulsive
rape revenge melodrama ever filmed.
(harmonica music)
- Let's see if I can still kick up that little...
[humming]
(harmonica music)
That's it.
(harmonica music)
- I Spit on Your Grave.
(woman chuckles)
- I Spit on Your Grave.
- Day of the Woman.
Day of the Woman.
(harmonica music)
(man whooping)
(woman shrieks)