**_Gory, but brilliant_**

> _It was very important for Jen to be fully objectified at the beginning of the film, to show that she is at ease with her body and how she uses it, at ease with how she seduces men and attracts male attention. But what I'm trying to get across is that this is not the problem, but rather that the male characters believe that the way she looks authorises them to treat her as though she is to be used and then disposed of like a worthless piece of rubbish. The male gaze in film often implies that women are to blame for acts of sexual violence committed against them,_ _which is deeply problematic. Through each male character, I wanted to show the different abusive behaviours that, to a large extent, have become normalised in today's society._

- Coralie Fargeat; "Exclusive Interview with _Revenge_ Director Coralie Fargeat"; _Bird's Eye View_ (December 5, 2018)


Jen (a superb Matilda Lutz) and her married lover Richard (Kevin Janssens) are enjoying a romantic weekend in his isolated house in the desert. However, shortly after they arrive, Richard's friends, Stan (Vincent Colombe), Dimitri (Guillaume Bouchède), and Roberto (Jean-Louis Tribes) show up unannounced, urging Richard to join them on a hunting trip. As tension mounts in the house, Stan rapes Jen, but when she says she is going to go to the police, and to alert Richard's wife of his affair, the men attack her and leave her for dead. However, unbeknownst to them, she survives the assault, and has set on revenge.

Very much in the vein of films such as Sam Peckingpah's _Strawdogs_ (1971) and Meir Zarchi's _I Spit On Your Grave_ (1978), _Revenge_ is an insanely gory rape-revenge thriller. In her feature debut, writer/director Coralie Fargeat displays an astonishing visual panache as she reappropriates this exploitative sub-genre for the post #MeToo era. From the expansive Ford-esque vistas of the desert to the claustrophobic and labyrinthine finale, her visual language is as dexterous and thematically justified as one would expect from a master stylist such as Michael Mann. The film is very much about the dangers and darker implications of the male gaze, and the way Fargeat's constantly moving camera lingers on actress Matilda Lutz's half-naked body is deeply unsettling, challenging the audience to look at her in the same way the male characters do, before turning this notion on its head in the second half of the film. If you can ignore the plot contrivances, and stomach the gore, you will find a socially relevant film that is as auspicious a debut as you're likely to see all year.