Let’s get one thing right out of the way: If you’re looking for THE FRAT GUY’S GUIDE TO TOTALLY BITCHIN’ MOVIES WHERE CHICKS GET RAPED, BRO!, this is not that book, and thank God for that. Alexandra Heller-Nicholas’ RAPE-REVENGE FILMS is, as it cover states, “A Critical Study.” It may even be the FIEND magazine founding editor’s Ph.D. thesis, for all I know. If so, she deserves an A.

Heller-Nicholas examines the subgenre in such depth, you may not realize how many movies there were that qualified. Sure, there are the top-of-mind titles of Mier Zarchi’s I SPIT ON YOUR GRAVE, Wes Craven’s LAST HOUSE ON THE LEFT and Abel Ferrara’s MS. 45 (whose protagonist adorns the book’s cover), but those, the author argues, are just one type of the rape-revenge film.

They’re the exploitation type, of course, but that ignores the more mainstream efforts as Jonathan Kaplan’s THE ACCUSED, for which Jodie Foster took home Oscar No. 1, and even Otto Preminger’s ANATOMY OF A MURDER. More legal dramas than lurid thrillers, their depictions of the brutal act aren’t as tough for audiences to take, partly because they’re not — in the case of SPIT — 20 minutes long.

Another type Heller-Nicholas names is the one where the viewpoint is male: Think the vacation from hell of John Boorman’s DELIVERANCE or Charles Bronson avenging crimes to his family in DEATH WISH.

From there, she examines the different genres of rape-revenge films — which include not just horror, but science fiction (DEMON SEED), Westerns (THE SEARCHERS) and the supernatural (THE ENTITY) — and discusses examples from around the world, of which Japan’s LADY SNOWBLOOD is among the most famous.

Lastly, a chapter is devoted to today’s rape-revenge film, which can remake yesteryear’s titles, riff off them (Quentin Tarantino’s half of GRINDHOUSE) or deliver a whole new twist, from THE GIRL WITH THE DRAGON TATTOO trilogy to the vagina-dentata dark comedy TEETH.

This is not some academic work that aims to sway you to from one side to another, nor is it some feminist manifesto crammed with politics and writes off such pictures. It’s just a well-written, insightful, thorough look into a film genre that dates back to the days of D.W. Griffith. It does what a good critical study should do: delve and dissect. And maybe even — as it did for me — add a few more titles to your Netflix queue. —Rod Lott

Buy it at Amazon.