French director Coralie Fargeats’ explosive debut is a gory, high-octane feminist revenge thriller that offers a bold new take on the controversial rape/revenge genre with a particularly gory tilt toward the latter half of that equation.

When Jen (Matilda Lutz) arrives at a remote desert villa with her millionaire boy toy Richard (Kevin Jannsens) for a weekend of romantic and illicit frivolity, things go south quickly when her lover’s unseemly hunting pals show up unannounced and make inappropriate advances toward her. When those advances escalate into an outright assault and rape the men quickly try to sweep their attack under the rug. But Jen is having none of it, and the hunted soon becomes the hunter...

Hypnotic, yet uncomfortable; bloody, yet witty, Revenge reframes the genre’s typical tendencies with a gaze that scrutinises male bodies and foregrounds its female protagonist’s transformation into a hardened vehicle of vengeance. Although certainly not for the faint of heart, this stylistic tour de force assumes a wry sense of humour for those with the stomachs to handle it as it careens towards its cathartic climax of outrageously bloody retribution.

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