Rape and revenge

In 1960, the term ''rape and revenge" coined Ingmar Bergman's The Virgin Spring, also considered the earliest film and precursor of the subgenre; the story of the film about a father seeks vengeance on his daughter to three herdsmen (two of them who raped and murdered her). According to director Ingmar Bergman, he was reading about the legend of Per Töre when he was a student, the plot follows the main character who had seven daughters who fell victim to seven rapists, which led him takes inspiration for the film as well as influences came from Japanese cinema, with Bergman particularly being a fan of Rashomon (1950).[7]

After the release of the same film in Sweden, the 1973's film Thriller – A Cruel Picture definitively codified the ethics and development of the genre, although the film was permanently banned in the same country.[8]

The Last House on the Left, depicted rape and graphic violence, drew substantial attention and is considered one of the pioneers in the subgenre.

After the following U.S. release of The Virgin Spring, it inspired Wes Craven's debut The Last House on the Left, which is the base of both Bergman's film and Swedish ballad "Töres döttrar i Wänge".[9][10] Like the Bergman's film, the plot of The Last House on the Left is carried by the two victim's parents exact vengeance to the criminals. In some cases, the film was more brutal and controversial than the Bergman's film, due to explicit rape and mutilation.

In the United States, it continues to produce several rape and revenge films in the 1970s including Sam Peckinpah's Straw Dogs, Michael Winner's Death Wish, Lamont Johnson's Lipstick, and Meir Zarchi's I Spit on Your Grave; some of them are mainly screened in mainstream theaters, while others were screened independently in underground cinemas as exploitation films.

In addition to American films, rape and revenge films have been made in the Philippines (e.g.; Lino Brocka's Insiang), Japan (e.g., Takashi Ishii's Freeze Me), Finland,[11] Russia (The Voroshilov Sharpshooter), Argentina (e.g., I'll Never Die Alone; [2008]; original title: No Moriré Sola), and Norway (e.g., The Whore [2009]; original title: Hora).

Several female directors have tried their hand at the genre to subvert its codes including Virginie Despentes' Baise-moi (2000), Coralie Fargeat's Revenge (2017), Jennifer Kent's The Nightingale (2018), and Emerald Fennell's Promising Young Woman (2020), the latter revitalized the subgenre and garnered multiple awards and nominations.[12]

Some of the films, Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri and Promising Young Woman, are subverted examples of the subgenre where a character was raped and murdered off-screen before the protagonist seeks revenge, although both films lack the use of graphic violence and onscreen rape.[13]

Motifs of the subgenre, meaning that without being claimed as belonging to the genre, sometimes appears as a subplot in films to take up the codes at one point such as Stanley Kubrick's Clockwork Orange, Gaspar Noé's Irréversible, Quentin Tarantino's Pulp Fiction and Kill Bill, Lars von Trier's Dogville, and Paul Verhoeven's Elle.[14][15]

Irréversible, despite the use of subgenre in the film, the entire structure was reversed from the end to middle (the latter shown in screenshot) of the film's plot.

Rape and revenge films generally follow three simple rules of the plot as a narrative structure, nearly similar to three-act structure;

1. Rape: The main character / victim is (violently) raped and maybe further abused, tortured or left for dead; the perpetrator(s) sometimes consider the victim dead.
2. Return: There are two optional decisions whereas to survive or not.
   • The main character is heavily devastated by the victim's death.
   • The main character / victim is barely survived, but still devastated, and may rehabilitate themselves under psychological circumstances.
3. Revenge: The main character (and optionally a third-party) exact vengeance and engage a plot to eliminate their rapist(s).

In Irréversible, the structure was reversed, with the first part depicting the revenge before tracing back the events which led to that point. Roger Ebert argues that, by using this structure as well as a false revenge, Irréversible cannot be classified as an exploitation film, as no exploitation of the subject matter takes place.[16]

Redo of Healer attracted controversy and notable as a rape and revenge genre in Japanese media.

Redo of Healer is an extreme example of the subgenre as an opposite of rape and revenge films; only developed in Japanese media, especially light novel and anime adaptation; similar to the structure (but subverted and introverted), the plot is about a 14-year-old young man who wishes to being a healing magician before is exploited and raped repeatedly in the kingdom for four years, and later decided to redo everything and takes revenge on the corrupted empire.[21]

Several anime and manga series including Berserk, Ninja Scroll, and Sword Art Online have experienced the subgenre used at one point, but the latter two backfired by eliminating them (e.g., for anime version of Sword Art Online in two episodes; one for Oberon almost sexually assaults Asuna in front of the protagonist Kirito, but Kirito exacts vengeance both in virtual reality and in real life at Oberon; while the other one for Raios and Humbert attempt to rape two young women as the other protagonist Eugeo struggles to fight himself by violating the code and exacts vengeance towards them[22]) after the attempted rape.

In television series, 13 Reasons Why, Game of Thrones, I May Destroy You, Jessica Jones, Sweet/Vicious, and Westworld are examples of the subgenre.[1]

In 1979 version of Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street, is an example of the subgenre as an opposite of rape and revenge films, in which is a musical theater by Stephen Sondheim and Hugh Wheeler. It generally features the structure, the plot is about Benjamin Barker, a married man who falsely accused of his crimes, seeks vengeance on his wife who was raped by Judge Turpin; Barker became disillusioned and offers his job as a barber in Fleet Street, secretly plotted himself to kill Turpin.[23][24]