I Spit on Your Grave (originally titled Day of the Woman) is a 1978 American rape and revenge film written and directed by Meir Zarchi.

The film tells the story of Jennifer Hills (Camille Keaton), a fiction writer based in New York City who exacts revenge on her four tormentors who gang rape and leave her for dead.

During its wider release, it was branded a "video nasty" in the United Kingdom, and was a target of censorship by film commissioning bodies.

[3][4] Film critic Roger Ebert became one of the most notable detractors of I Spit on Your Grave, calling it "a vile bag of garbage".

In her memoir Inside Out, Demi Moore confirmed that she is the scantily clad woman on the film's poster with her back turned.

[8] Short story writer Jennifer Hills lives in Manhattan and rents an isolated cottage in Kent, Connecticut near the Housatonic River in the Litchfield County countryside to write her first novel.

Matthew, remorseful over his actions, cannot bring himself to stab the still-unconscious Jennifer, so he dabs the knife in her blood and then returns to the other men, claiming that he has killed her.

The inspiration for I Spit on Your Grave came from an encounter writer-director Meir Zarchi had in 1974 with a young woman who was raped and beaten by two men at a park in New York City.

[10] The idea did not begin to fully develop until Yuri Haviv, the film's cinematographer, invited Zarchi to spend the weekend at a summer house he had rented in Kent, Connecticut which contains an extension of the Housatonic River nearby.

Zarchi eventually chose to shoot in these locations because they provided a tranquil atmosphere for the film's antiheroine, Jennifer Hills.

[10] He spent four months writing the screenplay, the bulk of which was written at his usual subway route to his office in Times Square and back home where his wife would then typewrite the handwritten pages in the evening.

Day of the Woman played a number of engagements in rural drive-in theaters, but only for brief runs each time, and Zarchi barely made back the money he had spent on advertising.

[12] In a 1984 interview with Fangoria, Zarchi said, "I found out that of the millions of video machines in England, there's maybe one single house that has not seen I Spit on Your Grave."

Roger Ebert gave the film no stars, referring to it as "A vile bag of garbage ... without a shred of artistic distinction," adding, "Attending it was one of the most depressing experiences of my life"[15] and considered it the worst movie ever made.

[17] Critic Luke Y. Thompson of The New Times stated that "defenders of the film have argued that it is actually pro-woman, due to the fact that the female lead wins in the end, which is sort of like saying that cockfights are pro-rooster because there is always one left standing".

argues that, when understood within the context in which director Zarchi was inspired to make it, the movie may be equally appropriate to analyze as "feminist wish-fulfillment" and a vehicle of personal expression reacting to violence against women.

Its consensus reads, "I Spit on Your Grave is as aggressively exploitative as its title suggests, although as a crude rejoinder to misogyny, it packs a certain amount of undeniable power.

After the association gave I Spit on Your Grave an R rating, the producer of the film added rape scenes, making it an X-rated movie.

[24] In an interview with Fangoria, director Meir Zarchi said as a response to the backlash: "Frankly, I'm not concerned whether it receives bad press or not.

"[13]Many nations, including Ireland, Norway, Iceland, and West Germany, banned the film altogether, claiming that it "glorified violence against women".

Having been banned for many years in the country, the new Blu-ray and DVD uncensored edition have been prohibited from purchase by retailers due to the nature of the film.

[27] In the commentary for the Millennium Edition, Zarchi said he was inspired to produce the film after helping a young woman who had been raped in New York.

They quickly decided that they had made the wrong decision — the officer, who Zarchi described as "not fit to wear the uniform", delayed taking her to the hospital and instead insisted that she follow formalities such as giving her full name (and the spelling), even though her jaw had been broken and she could hardly speak.

[citation needed] CineTel Films acquired rights with the remake also titled I Spit on Your Grave, which had a Halloween 2010 worldwide theatrical release.

The follow-up I Spit on Your Grave 2 was released on September 20, 2013, starring Jemma Dallender, Joe Absolom, Yavor Baharov, and Aleksandar Alekiov.

A second sequel, I Spit on Your Grave III: Vengeance Is Mine, arrived in 2015, with Butler reprising her role as Jennifer.

The official sequel I Spit on Your Grave: Deja Vu, directed by original director Meir Zarchi, was finished in October 2016 with Camille Keaton reprising her role as Jennifer Hills.

[32] It was also released alongside the remake in a 'Limited Collector's Edition' on February 7, 2011, in the U.K.[33] It was again submitted for U.K. DVD in 2020, and was passed with lesser cuts, this time totaling 1 min.