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Low-budget, poorly made horror film vaguely inspired by Ingmar Bergman's The Virgin Spring about two young women who are kidnapped and brutalized by a group of thugs and eventually murdered, after which the thugs seek temporary lodging in the home of one of the girls' parents who, discovering their crimes, seek bloody revenge. Too amateurish to generate much excitement (Craven clearly learned nothing of character development or how to create audience empathy from Bergman's film) and too dumb to provoke anger (far too many examples to list), this film is ultimately distasteful yet quickly forgotten. Praised, however, by Roger Ebert, who never reviewed The Virgin Spring, but could scarcely have given it a higher rating if he had. This edition includes soundless footage as a "bonus," expanding (not surprisingly) on the rape and torture of the girls. Remade, much more successfully, in 2009.
Low-budget, poorly made horror film vaguely inspired by Ingmar Bergman's The Virgin Spring about two young women who are kidnapped and brutalized by a group of thugs and eventually murdered, after which the thugs seek temporary lodging in the home of one of the girls' parents who, discovering their crimes, seek bloody revenge. Too amateurish to generate much excitement (Craven clearly learned nothing of character development or how to create audience empathy from Bergman's film) and too dumb to provoke anger (far too many examples to list), this film is ultimately distasteful yet quickly forgotten. Praised, however, by Roger Ebert, who never reviewed The Virgin Spring, but could scarcely have given it a higher rating if he had. This edition includes soundless footage as a "bonus," expanding (not surprisingly) on the rape and torture of the girls. Remade, much more successfully, in 2009.