Savage Vengeance, or whatever you want to call it (given the plethora of names designed to trap unwary B movie hounds into making a duplicate purchase), is a pretty awful film, but it's not entirely without entertainment value--that is, as long as you and your friends are prone to creating your own MST3K-styled sarcastic commentary.
Many people mistakenly call remakes and sequels "rip offs" of their predecessors. However, this is a case where "rip off" is probably the right term. Savage Vengeance is something of an "unofficial sequel" to I Spit on Your Grave (aka Day of the Woman) (1978). The only factor making it a gray issue is the fact that Camille Keaton plays the protagonist of both films--here under the pseudonym of "Vickie Kehl". Without Keaton's presence, there would be little doubt that this is strictly a rip off.
The film suffers from problems typical of microbudget horror. Jack-of-all-trades Donald Farmer hardly bothered to write a script. There's not much of a story here. The cinematography is horrible. The lighting is worse. The editing could just as well have been randomly determined. The effects are pitiful. No one turns in a performance worthy of even a Razzie. The film is full of padding, and even with that, it still barely clocks in at 65 minutes.
Yet . . . yet, I found Savage Vengeance somewhat entertaining on my second viewing. This is more likely to happen on a second viewing than a first, because during the first you're more likely to feel annoyed at rapidly disappearing hopes of a decent film, and perhaps even anger at wasting time or money on this turkey. On a second viewing (I know the prospect is maybe inherently masochistic, but I wouldn't deny being something of a nutball), you have zero expectations about seeing a quality film, and you can focus on the absurdities and shoddiness. Some of these features have been pointed out already in other reviews, but they're worth noting again. Here's a list of some of the amusing content to be on the lookout for:
* In the opening rape scene, all parties keep their pants on and secure. I guess this is a non-consensual dry hump. Still prosecutable, but it doesn't say much for the depravity and/or intelligence of the perpetrators.
* One of the initial rapists looks remarkably like Robert Plant. Given the setting, I was expecting him to break into "The Rain Song".
* Don't we all usually take long drives to head out to hiking trails in street clothes just to read a newspaper or magazine?
* There's a throat-slashing scene that Farmer lingers on way too long. It's obvious that he was thrilled with finally getting the blood-spurting effect to work, so he milks it for as long as he can, completely ruining the pacing of the film. Alright, I agree that "pacing" is a joke when talking about this film.
* In the convenience store, it takes Jennifer's (Keaton) friend only about two minutes to invite a sleazy redneck to their cabin later.
* The whole "pork-belly pie" bit was ridiculous enough to be hilarious.
* There are two scenes of bands playing that are more tortuous to sit through than the film overall. How quickly would you be out of either one of those bars?
* Note the carefully arranged shirt (without sufficient dramatic justification), planned so that just enough of Keaton will fall out of it periodically to keep us looking at the screen.
* A character suffers a serious knife wound that mysteriously disappears in the next scene.
* A character who is supposed to be dead keeps very conspicuously blinking and flinching. I guess it had something to do with the fact that the character didn't bleed at all, despite being killed by knife wounds.
* A chainsaw used as a weapon is completely unsynced to the chainsaw on the soundtrack.
* Doesn't every small town have police that do suspicious, random spot checks on residents going about their business just to make sure that "they're not getting into any trouble"?
* And this is my favorite--the incidental score. It's difficult to tell if Perry Monroe sincerely believed that he and his buddies were channeling Pink Floyd, but the results are more often unintentionally hilarious than not. The music is really just overbearing noodling (on a synthesizer, bass and drums), seemingly made up on the fly. I've actually produced stuff like that with friends during long overnight sessions when we were really wasted and goofing around, I'm embarrassed to say. The difference is that I wouldn't release it as a soundtrack to a film.
