Having garnered rave critical and audience response on the international film circuit, with Madeleine Sims-Fewer taking home the TIFF Rising Star Award at the 2020 Toronto International Film Festival, the potent and eye-opening tale of retribution, Violation makes its way to Shudder today.
Co-written and co-directed by Sims-Fewer and Dusty Mancinelli, this unflinching feminist revenge fable dissects gender politics, selfishness, and abuse of power whilst exploring the complicated nature of trauma within families.
Sims-Fewer delivers an uncompromising central performance as Miriam, a woman on the brink of divorce who returns to her hometown in the hope of finding solace in the comfort of her younger sister and brother-in-law. But one night, a tiny slip in judgement leads to a catastrophic betrayal, leaving Miriam shocked, reeling, and furious. Believing her only recourse is to exact revenge, Miriam takes extreme action, but the price of retribution is high, and she is not prepared for the toll it takes as she begins to emotionally and psychologically unravel.
As Violation releases exclusively on Shudder today, SCREAM sat down with Sims-Fewer and Mancinelli who discussed questioning and confronting gender narratives by flipping the rape-revenge sub-genre on its head and dismantling the problematic notion that revenge somehow makes you whole – something that is constantly perpetuated in this genre.
VIOLATION is exclusively released on SHUDDER today, 25 March 2021
Words: Howard Gorman
