Jim Hemphill’s immaculately directed “Bad Reputation” is half “Carrie” and half “I Spit on Your Grave,” it’s a teen thriller that I can finally get behind, and one that never swims in the kiddy pool. This is a hardcore revenge film, and I enjoyed it from the very beginning. It’s also one of the few rape revenge flicks that have come around in years, with an utterly compelling series of events that leads to unthinkable carnage, after an utterly disturbing rape sequence renders a young insecure girl a merciless monster. Hemphill definitely has his ducks in a row with a film that really brings the best of the revenge genre to the screen, without ever watering the atmosphere down to appeal to a younger audience.
This is the film that junk like “Tamara” tried and failed to be, while Hemphill storms the gates with a rather fantastic tale of vengeance. “Bad Reputation” is obviously a low budget film, but one that will fool the naked eye, for sure. Hemphill does so much with a small budget, and creates a film that helps you sympathize for the characters. Even though I didn’t buy Angelique Hennessy as a demure geek, she gives an excellent performance nonetheless, and is one that will win the hearts of the viewers before the shit hits the fan. Hennessy commits to every scene, and she’s a find that deserves a career. As Michelle Rosen, she’s a rather cute and harmless little thing who is forced into the social world, and basically manipulated for no other reason than existing.
With an apathetic mother who is almost jealous of her beauty, she discovers that many times, if something too good to be true, it probably isn’t. As she pays for her attempts at socializing, she begins to embody much more of a vengeful and sadistic persona that detracts more and more from the original Michelle we grow to know. She takes what she has and uses it to get her revenge, and the sex siren she soon becomes, in the end resembles less of the human Michelle we grew to like in the first half. This is Hemphill’s play on morality and revenge, and how sometimes the violence and devious deeds that take us into an area of justification can often times make us lose sight of the goal we originally set out to commit, and many times eliminate any sense of humanity that lingered within.
And Hemphill helps us to question the character of Michelle; was she a sleeping monster all the time, or did human cruelty make her this way? The more the film and Rosen’s revenge progresses, the more violent Michelle becomes, and transforms more into an amoral persona many audiences will have difficult sympathizing for. Hemphill could have easily turned his film into a man hating thriller, which has now become in vogue, but both sexes are depicted as loathsome and horrendous, and both ask for a horrible payback that only Michelle can deliver. The antagonists here hate Michelle for her advantages in beauty and brains; she’s a deep and complex person in a world of vacuous youth, and they simply hate her for existing. Even Wendy, played with a subtle sympathy by Danielle Noble, who plays the protagonist in the vein of Amy Irving in “Carrie,” consoles Michelle, even though she obviously feels threatened by her presence, and deep down seems to sub-consciously revel in the torture she suffers.
All of which leads to a rather dark journey of Michelle’s acceptance into a violent elaborate plot that swirls into a fantastic climax that oozes that exploitation charm without any of the bargain basement production qualities. Jim’s ode to horror movies, while keeping his own film in check is rather admirable, and “Bad Reputation” is a hell of a movie that has to be seen for folks who enjoy watching victims become the predators. I rather loved Jim Hemphill’s tale of revenge, bloodshed, and a story that was powerful in a film world where true storytelling is often lost in the genre. With a wonderful lead, taut writing, and a great play on vengeance and innocence lost, “Bad Reputation” is a horror film worth seeking out. “I Spit on Your Grave” fans need apply.