I Spit on Your Grave III: Vengeance Is Mine (2015)

After the second part focused on entirely different characters, Sarah Butler is back for the third part, "I Spit on Your Grave: Vengeance is Mine", to reprise her role as 'Jennifer Hills'. She had changed her name to 'Angela' though, and we pretty much see the aftermath of the events that took place in the first film. Of course just of the remake and not the first first one. Directed by R.D. Braunstein, with whose work I am not familiar with at all aside from this film here, I must say that I enjoyed this one as well. It is nowhere close to be as good as the first part, but here is some genuine character development to be found. Not only with 'Jennifer' but also with 'Marla' (Jennifer Landon) and 'Oscar' (Doug McKeon), whose character I absolutely loved and it is great he was included in this film. It gave it so much more depth. To amp up the gore, this film uses many fake outs though. Meaning, that you actually get a decent amount of cool bloody shots, but most of them turn out to be just in 'Jennifer's head. Like in an -what if- scenario. It kind of shows that mental state she is in at this point, but sometimes it feels, like there were scenes only included for the sake of having them in them. The last one we get to see, for example, makes no sense. Usually this film went for it in an understandable way. Someone says something offending to her, she bludgeons them as a response, then we cut back to reality and she walks away without having harmed anyone. As if these scenes showed her desire of what she'd love to do in that moment. in the end you see her getting attacked by two fellow prison inmates, which she deals with in the usual violent fashion. Then the therapist shows up to stop her and she just turns around and still on an adrenaline rush 'Jennifer' takes her out, too. And it was a fake out again. She walks away, not covered in blood... nothing actually happened. But she wasn't reacting to anything in that moment. So what? Does she now randomly fantasize -what if- scenarios? Becoming totally mental? I think, this scene hurt the movie actually a little, because it will not just leave me confused. But makes for a good start to theorize the hell out of it, just as I did after I watched it with my wife. It's cool when movies make you wanna talk about them afterwards. For a third part this was good, but nothing all too special. "I Spit on Your Grave: Vengeance is Mine" has some really good moments, especially when it comes to the character build stuff. But it isn't that thrill ride we're used to from previous parts.

So Sarah Butler came back and that was pretty cool to do a follow up...but it almost makes Jennifer Hills into the bad guy and, though it was unsettling, it doesn't seem right. She's a little too pro-active on the vengeance thing to really sit well. It kind of works as a continuation of a story...but it kills a lot of the overwhelming sympathy you had for Jennifer, even while she was extracting some brutal vengeance. And I kind of feel that the point of movies like this is to get the audience to sympathize with someone doing some absolutely horrible things.

"I Spit on Your Grave 3" is a failed attempt to create something unique within the franchise. It introduces a new storyline and a support group subplot but offers no depth to either, leaving the narrative feeling hollow and unengaging. The lack of attachment to the protagonist makes the movie even harder to connect with. The gruesomeness feels forced and contrived, stripping away any sense of impact or purpose. Sarah Butler's performance comes off as overly forced, failing to bring any authenticity or emotional connection to her character. A disappointing addition to an already controversial series.