Released in 2017 Revenge  is a French movie about Jen (Matilda Lutz) her rich married boyfriend Richard (Kevin Janssens) and his pair of hunter pals Stan and Dimitri. Jen has flown with Richard to his isolated landed estate in the desert for a weekend affair but their assignation is interrupted by the early arrival of Stan and Dimitri who are to accompany Richard on a hunting trip. After an evening of music, dancing, and drink, Richard departs for business and while left alone Jen is raped by Stan and Dimitri does nothing to stop the assault. Richard attempts to buy Jen’s silence with a check but things spiral out of control until it becomes a fight for survival and revenge with Jen pitted against the three men.

Over all I found Revenge  to have not lived up to its hype. I remember hearing about from corners of my film community and it even played at a local micro-theater but I never got the chance to see it until watching it in Shudder. Despite being directed by a woman, Coralie Fargeat, the staging, costuming, and framing of Matilda Lutz struck me as overly objectifying. I never fully engaged empathically with Jen, her terrible plight, or her struggle and I think that comes down to two major factors. The first is the leering nature of the photography it seemed to constantly present Jen only something of a sexual desire keeping me at a distance from her as a character. The second major reason for my emotional disconnection is my shattering of disbelief when presented with unreal and impossible physical damage that characters not only survive and but remain fighting functional. It would appear that the scriptwriter has never been exposed to the concept of internal bleeding or exactly why you can’t run with your major abdominal muscles torn or ruptured.

My viewing coming quickly after another recent film on Shudder  about a young woman who has to survive after a terrible assault I could not help but compare this with The Corpse of Anna Fritz. Anna Fritz  while produced on a much smaller budget and with far fewer sequences of action, was a film where I never lost a tense and fearful emotional connection with the character of Anna. Watching Revenge  I was mostly bored but during Anna Fritz I was engaged and concerned, desperately hoping for Ann to escape this unjust and unfair situation. There is far more nudity in Anna Fritz  and yet it is presented in a manner that did not feel leering or objectifying but rather exposed and terrifying.

I cannot recommend Revenge and if you have Shudder  go with Anna Fritz  instead.