The unfathomably fashionable torture film has spun off a welcome girl-power subgenre, in which determined, attractive young females facilitate the agonizing dispatches of men who have committed atrocities against youth.
In Hard Candy, a teenage girl meets a lecherous and possibly pedophilic photographer online and ends up at his house, where she aims to punish him for the sins she’s certain he’s committed. In Lady Vengeance, a young woman emerges from prison with a grudge against the man responsible for her incarceration: a serial murderer of children who forced her to confess to one of his crimes by threatening to kill her daughter.
It’s a curious but promising phenomenon — invoking Virgin Spring-style outrage and justice — and if it develops into a trend, I imagine that in its mature state it will produce a gruesome but meaningful masterpiece or two. But the early entries — these two come from 2005 — are misguided.

Perspective and the Past