Yes, I have seen the original movie this one is based on but it was ages ago and I actually remember very little about it. For some reason I also always mix it up with the 1972 Wes Craven movie "The Last House on the Left". I therefore also can't tell you how the two of them compare to each other but I can only assume that the original did a far better job with its concept and was a better and more effective movie, since I actually quite liked it, which I can't really say for this movie.
The truth is that older genre movies were always capable of getting away with far more stuff than any of the more recent genre movies. It was OK for older sorts of genre movies to be very simplistic and straightforward ones, as long as they were doing something special, which either could be something totally outrageous and crazy, gore, violence or sex-wise or something so stupid that it would actually work out as something entertaining and original to watch. Nowaways, people are not only more demanding but it's also really hard to stand out. Pretty much everything has been done in movies already, so how are you going to stand out with anything, nowadays? Well. this movie was clearly struggling with this as well and it in fact also stands out in absolutely no way at all!
That was the thing about the original 1978 version; It had a, at the time, greatly original concept, in which things got turned around and the victim became the tough, coldblooded, killer. Plus added to that; it was a woman! In a way it was a real female empowering movie. Can the same be said about this movie as well? Well, not really. It's just nothing more but another average 'torture porn' horror flick. That the characters who's inflicting most of the pain and causing the most death and destructing is a female, who's on a revenge streak, doesn't add all that much in this case and I believe there are multiple reasons for this.One is the main lead itself, played by Sarah Butler. Now, I'm not saying she is a terrible actress but her character is a far too poorly developed one. It's hard to get behind her because of this and thing that also incredibly annoyed me was the fact that she was always wearing perfect looking makeup and had wonderful, clean looking, hair, even in the scenes she was supposed to look dirty and beaten. Things like this always distract me and take me out of a movie.
Another thing is that here you have a movie, in which the interesting- and standout moments should be the torture/gory scenes. Seriously, other than that the story has absolutely nothing to offer. It's a very simplistic, straightforward movie that's relying heavily on all of the gore and violence. Now, here's the problem with it; the gore and violence really isn't anything all that special or graphic to watch. A lot gets implied but very little is actually shown. So now that is taken away from this movie, what is left in it? Just some very average, run of the mill, type of genre stuff. The movie constantly tries very hard to shock you but it never really hits. Instead of feeling raw and realistic, things in this movie feel far too polished, making the gore and violence appear more tame and less effective as well.
Now, to be fair; as far as these type of movies go, this really isn't the worst one you could watch. It remains good looking, never gets boring and never gets offensively bad with anything. It's perfectly watchable actually, though you obviously are still far better off watching the 1978 original, that's also known under the title "Day of the Woman", that was doing far more interesting and effective things with its concept.
6/10
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