George Carlin once said, "I can prove to you that rape is funny. Just imagine Porky Pig raping Elmer Fudd." In a sense, Revenge is the movie version of that joke. Writer/director Coralie Fargeat never asks us to laugh at sexual violence in her story about a mistress and a millionaires' hunting retreat gone wrong. But she insists on a levity-as-catharsis atmosphere in details both explicit (four people lose as much blood as forty people) and mundane (in one scene, the main villain's wardrobe matches his throw pillows, sofa, and tacky couch-painting). Though the ass-shots are gratuitous and the gore will make even die-hard horror fans queasy, Fargeat's hard-driving, midnight-movie attitude is so thoroughly coated in commercial gloss that an Autobot leaping out of the Moroccan-desert backdrop would not have felt out of place. This is I Spit on Your Grave for the age of Agency and iffy attention spans.
Welcome to Kicking the Seat!
Ian Simmons launched Kicking the Seat in 2009, one week after seeing Nora Ephron’s Julie & Julia. His wife proposed blogging as a healthier outlet for his anger than red-faced, twenty-minute tirades (Ian is no longer allowed to drive home from the movies).
The Kicking the Seat Podcast followed three years later and, despite its “undiscovered gem” status, Ian thoroughly enjoys hosting film critic discussions, creating themed shows, and interviewing such luminaries as Gaspar Noé, Rachel Brosnahan, Amy Seimetz, and Richard Dreyfuss.
Ian is a member of the Chicago Film Critics Association. He also has a family, a day job, and conflicted feelings about referring to himself in the third person.