The Cornell 7. The UChicago fraternity. The death of a FIT undergrad student after being drugged and raped in her dorm. Shane Gillis’ terrible excuse for jokes during his SNL monologue. This has all happened in just a few weeks: a slew of horrendous gendered violence all targeting female sexuality and bodily autonomy. It’s a never-ending hell where women everywhere are reminded of the sheer terrors of existing as female in a world that deeply hates us, and survivors of sexual violence are constantly reminded of their own trauma. As a sexual assault survivor myself, it’s felt like being trapped in a cage that keeps getting smaller with no escape in sight. I’ve been beating at the bars of my enclosure like a feral animal, screaming for relief from a world where hatred for women only seems to grow by the day. We need something, anything, to make us feel seen or heard for even just a moment.
This is why, I think, we need rape-revenge movies now more than ever before.
Now, when I say rape-revenge movies, I’m not talking about I Spit on Your Grave (1978) or The Last House on the Left (1972). These films have their place in cinematic history, and do offer catharsis to some survivors. But for my current purposes, when I say rape-revenge movies, I mean movies directed by women, queer people, and survivors themselves, films that are raw, deeply personal, complicated, flawed, but ultimately honest about what it means to actually achieve vengeance. I’m talking about films like Madeline Sims-Fewer and Dusty Mancinelli’s Violation and Ellie Foumbi’s Our Father The Devil.
What exactly are my qualifications to make such a claim, you may ask? Well, besides the trauma, I wrote my Master’s thesis on the rise of the female-directed rape-revenge film (focusing on Coralie Fargeat’s Revenge), and I also directed a rape-revenge film, released in 2025, called Bystanders. I’ve done perhaps too much thinking about this subgenre and its massive evolution over the decades.
Rape revenge started as a type of film that relished in female pain as spectacle, but has since become something much more introspective and complicated, a subgenre that isn’t afraid to shy away from the mess of what it means to get revenge even after such horrendous trauma. It’s not a subgenre for everyone, but I do still think it’s a crucial one for processing and understanding the complex emotions that arise in the face of unending atrocities of sexual violence. They’re a place to find catharsis, without sugarcoating the consequences of that catharsis.
Madeline Sims-Fewer and Dusty Mancinelli’s 2020 film, Violation, is one of the best examples of a modern rape-revenge film. They utilize non-linear storytelling to tell the story of Miriam, who’s raped by her childhood best friend, who is also married to her sister. Telling the story out of order gives the film a distinct haziness, one that mirrors memory in the immediate wake of trauma. This only compounds the very realistic and harrowing acts of violence that occur throughout the film. While Miriam’s rape is only shown in glimpses and close-ups of hands, her revenge is shown in the bright light of day as she slowly hacks away at the body of her rapist. Violation is a truly unflinching portrayal of what it means to kill your rapist and get away with murder.
But something else the film does so well is portray how trauma can make you into a monster yourself. There’s a pivotal scene after Miriam is raped where she tries to initiate sex with her husband. Even after he says no, she continues to push herself onto him, trying to reclaim some agency over her sexuality while completely violating her partner. At that moment, she’s monstrous, a person unable to hear the word “no”, because she needs something so desperately. She is quite literally no better than a man, which is an important point Sims-Fewer and Mancinelli make here. Just because you’ve survived trauma doesn’t prevent you from doing bad things. It’s a reason, certainly, but not an excuse, and Miriam is constantly grappling with that. It’s a unique perspective that’s almost never examined because it is so messy and uncomfortable. But that truth is so important to confront if we’re ever to find some peace within ourselves on our healing journeys.
Then, there is Ellie Foumbi’s feature film debut, Our Father The Devil, released in 2021. The film follows Marie, who is suddenly forced to confront the man who tortured and abused her as a young girl in Ghana. Even after years in France and building a great life for herself as a chef, Marie is brought back to her childhood the moment she sees his face. Foumbi crafts a harrowing tale about confronting a past you thought you had escaped.
One aspect that Foumbi spends particular, careful attention to is a survivor’s relationship to their own sexuality after experiencing sexual violence. Your relationship with sex radically shifts, and trying to enjoy sex, let alone let someone touch you again, feels like a betrayal to your own body. Desire feels wrong, and being in your own body is a monumental challenge. And somehow, Foumbi beautifully captures that through Marie’s attempts at having a sexual relationship, especially while navigating the appearance of her abuser. In a subgenre that often weaponizes sex scenes, Foumbi chooses to show sex only as intimate and vulnerable, a place where Marie can try to let go after years of holding everything so close.
While a majority of these films are from the 2020s and beyond, this trend cannot simply be seen as a reaction to the #MeToo movement, but rather something that developed alongside it. Fargeat’s Revenge (her debut feature before wowing the world with The Substance) was released in early 2018 as Shudder’s first original. While her film is a more straightforward, technicolor bloodbath, Fargeat shocks with her weaponization of the male gaze in unflinching, violent ways. It was not a reaction to #MeToo, but rather to decades of female subjugation in front of the camera for male titillation.
Even before Revenge, Leite’s 2017 film, MFA was an incredible example of a nuanced avenging-angel tale. The film follows Noelle (Francesca Eastwood), who decides to take justice into her own hands after she’s raped by a fellow classmate. But in her attempts to do good and save the day, she only does more damage to her best friend, who is also a sexual assault survivor. Yes, terrible men are killed, but it’s not just about their satisfying deaths. Leite and screenwriter Leah McKendrick show that not everyone wants revenge, and taking away their agency that way is just as harmful.
Rape-revenge is not new, but the way it’s being crafted certainly is. It shows a new wave of filmmakers unafraid to tell hard truths and examine the harsh realities of what it means to get that brief moment of violent catharsis. It’s no longer about watching women suffer and become monstrous. It’s about watching survivors blossoming into something strange, beautiful, and terrifying. The inherent messiness of the modern rape-revenge film makes them feel more authentic, even if they do all involve graphic violence. Because the focus isn’t solely on the spectacle of violence. It’s on what it means to try and live a life after dragging yourself through hell.
That’s why we need more rape-revenge films now more than ever.
Categorized:Editorials