In the world of creativity- passion, desire, and drive do not equal talent. Its one of the sad truths of life, and probably the sort of advice the young artists of the world don't want to see in foreword of every book they study, hear spoken from their professors, or, at the least, find knit on inspirational throw pillows... If passion, desire, and drive did equal talent there is probably little doubt film maker Eric Stanze would be the Orson Welles, Tobe Hooper, or Wes Craven of St Louis, Missouri (and maybe I would be the next great surrealist painter/photogrpher/writer).

I Spit on Your Corpse, I Piss on Your Grave is a low budget, independent, video shot, shock horror film. The simplistic story is about two brothers, one of whom kills a girl and the innocent brother gets blamed for the killing goes to prison and escapes a complete nutjob. He calls up his old girlfriend, abducts her, and takes her to a house where he has gathered his four character witnesses (her included), who he blames for his being sent to jail. She manages to kill him before he harms anyone, but this makes her go crazy and she then begins to torture the remaining men, all of whom coincidentally victimized her at one point. She shoots one in the crotch, makes another defecate and eat it, then chops him up, and the grand finale involves her graphically (or should I say, pornographically) masturbating with a broom handle before using it on the last guy, who she then sodomizes to death with aforementioned broom handle... In other words, its the sort of underground tasteless shock stuff for people who think Necromantik has a darn complicated plot.

Well, I picked this up blindly. You never know when you may pick up the next Bad Taste or Videodrome, two movies I rented blindly eons ago and now count among my favorite genre films. I consider myself a huge fan of exploitation, but I Spit on Your Corpse, I Piss on Your Grave is the most lackluster uninteresting kind. Exploitation, that works, like Coffy, takes some kind of concept, like Coffy's anti-drug message, and slides it in with heavy doses of sleaze, humor, low budget charm, violence, and other gratuitous elements. Other revenge films like Ms. 45 and the one that finds its title bastardized, the true I Spit on Your Grave, manage to make you feel sympathy for its poor victim. Say what you will about the tawdry nastiness and weak story of Baise Moi, at least it had brisk pacing and some decent acting. The plot, directing, and acting I Spit on Your Corpse, I Piss on Your Grave is no better than something a high school drama class could pull off. I cant imagine it took more than a week at the most to film (and I think the commentary stated this was the case) and is utterly uninteresting in its plot and damn pointless other than its scant low budget gore and shock scenes. For me, such scenes are nullified with nothing interesting to back them up. The film is obviously padded out to meet a specific running time (a little over an hour)- at least I hope thats the excuse. We are treated to seemingly endless sequences like the shots of pipes to let us know we're in a basement, or the meandering around a cemetery where the brother abducts the girl. She just wanders around and we are forced to watch shot after shot of trees, crypts, and gravestones- I get the point, she walking in a graveyard, I don't need two more minutes of repeated graveyard footage. Last week I reviewed the shock avant garde short, Pig, which was probably just as simple and unimpressive a shock film, but at least Pig had some decent composition and lame stabs at surrealism. I cant say the same for I Spit on Your Corpse, I Piss on Your Grave, which is just not for me and probably most horror fans. Its the real brainless, do-it-yourself fringe.

The DVD: Sub Rosa

Picture- Fullscreen. As I said, its basically high fi video; your average episode of Cops or your local news looks better. For what it is, it looks fine and the transfer is relatively artifact free, but there is only so far you can push the resolution, color, and overall definition of video.

Sound- Dolby Digital 2.0 Stereo. Sound is fine considering the material. Music obviously comes through stronger and with more depth than the recording of the dialogue, but it too is pretty clear and audible. The soundtrack consists of death metal tracks and some ambient music. I had a good laugh at the opening track which features a gruff voiced metalhead singing, "Be a mean motherf***er,.. Come f*** with me,... I'll sodomize your sister... Don't f*** with me." Reminded me of a friend in high school who used to write faux metal lyrics for a laugh.

Extras- Chapter Selections--- Preview Trailers for other Sub Rosa work, I Spit on Your Grave, I Piss on Your Corpse, Insaniac, and Christmas Season Massacre--- Behind the Scenes at Sub Rosa (25 mins)--- Web Info--- The Dumpster Incident (15 min), actually the best part of this DVD, Stanze recounts the story of how someone thought that his dumpster of props was real body parts and blood, called the cops, and eventually the misunderstanding lead to some national media coverage. It was interesting, but could have been told in half the time the featurette takes.--- Commentary By director/writer/actor Eric Stanze and the lead actress. It was actually a pretty good commentary the highlight of which was Stanze recounting how his foreign investors, (the dirty, dirty French) made the film worse, far more extreme than he intended by requesting the nastier business like the defecation, genital burning, and such.

Conclusion: To be fair, although I may personally find the film worthless... It also really wasn't made for me. So, since it technically doesn't have any problems, and is probably a good buy for fans of such movies. I'll give it a 'recommended/rent it' if you know you're a fan. Just be sure you know what you're getting into.