Revenge of Jennifer Hills, The: Remaking a Cult Icon (2011)
*** (out of 4)
Decent making of featurette about the 2010 remake I SPIT ON YOUR GRAVE. The documentary starts off with the 1978 director Meir Zarchi talking about why he felt it was right to remake his film, one that set off a storm of controversy when it was originally released. Zarchi feels that this film takes its own spin on the story and goes into a different direction making it okay. The 2010 director (Steven R. Monroe) talks about the first time he saw the original movie and his thoughts on remaking it. Cast members Sarah Butler, Andrew Howard, Daniel Franzese and Chad Lindberg are among those interviewed and I think the most interesting thing is that a couple of them claim to have seen the original back when it was first released to video. On the whole this is a somewhat satisfactory documentary that covers the basic grounds and I'm always interested in hearing the "new" guys talk about the old film. I think at just 17-minutes the thing is way too short to go into much detail so I wish the running time had been expanded because there were other people who could have been interviewed. The most disappointing thing about the releases from Anchor Bay is the fact that very few people from the original movie were brought in for interviews. This includes Camille Keaton who has been making the rounds at horror festivals so it would have been nice hearing her opinions. The original film is still pretty neglected when it comes to "special features" and sadly this documentary is a missed opportunity.
