Revenge had its world premiere on 11 September 2017 at the 42nd Toronto International Film Festival, as part of the Midnight Madness section.

Jen is a young, beautiful American who wants to move to Los Angeles to pursue her dreams and believes Richard can help her.

Jen regains consciousness, and while bleeding, is able to painfully free herself, but with a piece of the tree branch still stuck through her torso.

She remembers she has Richard's peyote and takes it, before entering a heightened state of mind when she removes the branch and heats a beer can in the fire to cauterize the wound.

Coralie Fargeat was inspired to make a revenge film in the vein of Mad Max or Rambo, "with strong characters on a phantasmagoric journey".

"[5] One of Fargeat's inspirations was the Steven Spielberg film Duel because it manages to generate tension using "so few elements: a car, a truck and that's it".

[7] Of the film's early scenes that view Jen through a male gaze and show her dancing with men, Fargeat said this was done because she "wanted to embrace the fascinating, polarising image of the Lolita.

The website's consensus reads: "Revenge slices and dices genre tropes, working within an exploitation framework while adding a timely – yet never less than viscerally thrilling – feminist spin.

[17] Andrew Whalen of Newsweek said the film is "the closest thing to a feminist rape-revenge tale since Abel Ferrara's Ms.

[18] A. O. Scott of The New York Times wrote: "Blunt, bloody and stylish almost in spite of itself, Revenge is a synthesis of exploitation and feminism".

[18][20] Christy Lemire of RogerEbert.com awarded the film three and a half out of four, and wrote: "with cinematographer Robrecht Heyvaert, Fargeat has created a high-contrast hellscape, a place filled with equal amounts of danger and discovery".

[17] Writing for Variety, Scott Tobias commented: "The small miracle of Revenge, an exceptionally potent and sure-handed first feature by French writer-director Coralie Fargeat, is that it adheres to the formula yet feels invigorating and new, a stylistic tour-de-force that also tweaks the sexual politics in meaningful ways.

[17] Lutz was also lauded for her performance, with Tobias saying she rises to the emotional challenge and gives a "physical presence that's indomitable, like a blade forged in fire",[20] and Lemire writing she is able to "[indicate] a massive character arc without many words".

David Sims of The Atlantic wrote: "Winking title aside, this is a movie more about transformation and transference than revenge...Fargeat is taking familiar, misogynistic iconography and setting it to boil, bringing all its cruelty and noxiousness to the surface.

Revenge won't be an experience every viewer can handle, but as a piece of extreme horror, it's an intelligent and flashy debut.

[23] Wilson argued: "If rape is the pinnacle of male disregard for female life, what do we accomplish by presenting a protagonist who gleans and internalizes that violent indifference?

"[23] Kevin Maher of The Times voiced a similar sentiment: "Labelled a 'feminist rape-revenge movie', it takes all the traditional tenets of that most dubious of genres and simply does them again.