Ladies and gentlemen… strap yourselves in and enjoy things for a while, because we might currently be in the GOLDEN AGE of ultra low budget horror movies! You might think this is madness due to the B-movie boom of the 50’s and 60’s, or even the direct to video heyday of Troma or Full Moon in the 80’s & 90’s… But I wholeheartedly stand by this opinion. Currently, out there in the world, we have those loveable Canadians of Astron 6 making things like Manborg and their upcoming film,The Editor, as well as Richmond, VA’s Drew Bolduc making The Taint, and currently planning screenings for his new film, Science Team. Added to this mix of beloved low budget filmmakers with dubious taste is Chris Seaver, whose filmography includes such titles as Scrotal Vengeance and Terror at Blood Fart Lake, and the subject of this blog, 2008’s wonderfully bizarre I Spit Chew on Your Grave.
In all honesty, I have only just recently heard of Seaver. I was linked to a trailer for I Spit Chew… at some point, and promptly forgot about it, even if I found myself very intrigued by it at the time. Then, on an excursion to a second hand book store, I saw literally a whole shelf of copies of this movie at a too good to pass up price. So, finding myself with jogged memory and $2.49 in my pocket, I decided to make a purchase. So glad I did. This is a completely unique and somewhat amazing film experience. It may be easy to dismiss this as just a ridiculously inept attempt at cinema that isn’t worth the time to watch or the resources needed to press the discs. And for some of you, this assessment might be 100% true. I wouldn’t fault you for that, either. This movie IS extremely silly. However, if you’re like me (and if you are, man… I’m sorry to hear that), this is a wonderful little slice of heaven.
This fucking guy. Him and his toblerone…
I Spit Chew on Your Grave follows our main character, Leo. Leo is an idiot. He has a ridiculous moustache, and says things like “Toblerone and Canada go hand in hand… Like peanut butter and mayonnaise!”. Leo comes into some money via a scratch off ticket (what else?) and then finds himself targeted by a gang of female thugs who call themselves the Gash Nasties, who prey on men with money, rob them, and rape them to death. Oh, and they are inexplicably led by Gareth the Goblin King from Labyrinth. The Nasties abduct Leo, and leave him for dead. But he survives, and swears vengeance on his attackers. So yeah. This is sort of (not really) a gender swapped re-telling of the ‘classic’ rape revenge flick I Spit on Your Grave, but with a decidedly less brutal and more ridiculous. But, as is usually the case with these movies, the plot is pretty irrelevant. The devil is really in the details here.
I got nothing. no context is necessary.
I can say with zero hyperbole that I truly believe that this would be the most quotable movie if more people had seen it. Every second of this movie is packed with ridiculously memorable (or maybe memorably ridiculous?) dialogue. There are literally too many amazing lines to list here without having pages upon pages of stuff like “LET’S FUCK LIKE THE ELDERLY!” “ YOU BITCHES HAVE TURNED THIS PLEASURE INTO A BRUTAL ENIGMA!” and “For fuck’s sake, girl… you’re nipple freakin’ is forged from the GODS!”, and it would start to lose meaning, and also loses a lot in translation to the written medium.
Here, we see Gareth and his… uh puppets? performing the song “Rape Magic Rape”. I’m also not making that up.
Aside from the amazing dialogue, there is more to like about this movie. The performances, while obviously over the top, are actually good for what they are. Everyone involved commits to the film 100%, and the commitment translates extremely well to the final project. You can tell this was a labor of love, and that everyone involved had an absolute blast making it. This joy is infectious, and if you like this kind of movie, it’s impossible to go more than a minute at this movie without cracking a smile. Also, at just 58 minutes long, the joke never gets stale. It’s not all great, though. This movie is what it is, and while this is its greatest strength, it is also its greatest weakness. If you go into this movie with the expectation of competent camera work, wardrobe, performances, and well… anything i guess, you’re going to probably be disappointed. It DOES take a viewer with certain sensibilities to enjoy it, and sometimes it does seem weird for the sake of being weird… ok, it’s pretty much ALWAYS weird for the sake of being weird.
“HEAVENS TO BETSY!!!”
But at the end of the day, the only criteria i have for evaluation a movie is whether or not I was entertained while watching it, and this was one of the most oddly entertaining movies I have seen in a long time. It’s dumb, gross, juvenile, and pretty great. I can also say without a doubt that this is the best movie ever made in which a man frees himself from captivity by whipping people in the face with his scrotum. So that counts for something, right?