In the 1978 film, Jennifer is an aspiring short story writer from New York vacationing in a cabin in the woods to focus on writing her novel.

She is then assaulted by a group of local rednecks, Johnny Stillman, Matthew Duncan, Andy Chirensky, and Stanley Woods who rape her, destroy her manuscript and leave her for dead.

In 2019, Camille Keaton reprised her role as Jennifer in I Spit on Your Grave: Deja Vu, the sequel to the original film and timeline.

Decades after the events of the original film, Jennifer published a successful autobiography that recounts the assaults against her and her revenge; this infuriates the family members of the men that she killed, Becky Stillman (Johnny's wife), Beady Eyes Duncan (Matthew's grandmother), Herman Duncan (Matthew's father), Henry Stillman (Johnny's father), Millie Stillman (Johnny's mother), Scotty Chirensky (Andy's cousin), and Kevin Woods (Stanley's brother) and causes them to seek retribution of their own.

In the sequel, she assumed the pseudonym "Angela Jitrenka" and works as a hotline operator wherein she also continues being a vigilante who murders sex offenders in a brutal fashion after having been driven insane by her past ordeals and her paranoia over men.

"[5] In Men, Women, and Chain Saws: Gender in the Modern Horror Film, Carol J. Clover stated that "Jennifer takes the revenge she does not for deep-seated psychological reasons but because it is the punishment that fits the crime; there are no extenuating circumstances; the law is not involved, nor are legal questions raised; and there is no concern whatever, not even at the level of lip service, with moral and ethical issues.