Three young women wake up, confused and terrified, in a room that looks like a cross between a normal hospital room and the creepy underground lair of some mad scientist from a horror movie. A video screen flickers on and a creepy older man, looking a bit like Academy-award-nominee Robert Loggia, appears on it, telling the women that he’s their “jailer.” The women, you see, had all been getting abortions when their jailer’s shadowy accomplices kidnapped them and brought them to this strange prison, where they will be forced to live for the next seven months until they gave birth. “You were all on the operating table, all ready to commit murder,” announces a mysterious doctor. “Your babies will be given life just as God planned.”
This is the premise of a new horror film called The Life Zone, which recently had its world premiere at the prestigious, er, Hoboken International Film Festival, a festival that was, perhaps not coincidentally, founded and chaired by the film’s writer and producer, Kenneth del Vecchio. In case you think I’m making all this up, here’s the film’s trailer, which makes The Life Zone look a bit like an equal-parts mixture of Saw, Human Centipede, and The Handmaid’s Tale, with Robert Loggia in the role of Jigsaw/Dr. Heiter/The Commander:
Now, if you thought that something seemed really … off about that trailer, well, you’re not alone. For the film is not, as you might have assumed from my description, a warning against the fanatical misogyny of many in the anti-abortion movement.
No, the film – produced by a pro-life former judge, crime thriller author, and Republican New Jersey state senate candidate – is meant as pro-life propaganda. As the offical press release for the film’s premiere put it:
The film, which appears to cut right down the middle [of the abortion debate], examining the topic from both sides, offers a powerful, anti-abortion climactic twist. Del Vecchio and the cast invite pro-lifers to come to this historic event.
During the months the three women are held in captivity, you see, they are exposed to a barrage of films and books intended to, er, educate them about abortion –what their attending obstetrician Dr. Wise describes as “an abortion think tank.” Two of the captive women do indeed convert to the pro-life side; apparently we in the audience are supposed to develop Stockholm Syndrome along with them. The third, as we see in the trailer, tries to induce a miscarriage, which doesn’t go quite as planned.
And this sets us up for the final twist, which I’m just going to go ahead and reveal: once all three women have given birth, Dr. Wise tells them she’s going to sew them all, mouth-to-vagina, into a Human Abortion-pede!
Actually no: the twist is that the “life zone” the three women in has actually been … purgatory! All three “captives,” you see, had died on the operating table while getting their abortions. (Apparently they went to the world’s worst abortion clinic, as first-trimester abortions don’t involve anything more surgically invasive than the insertion of a suction tube; the risk of death from a legal surgical abortion is 0.0006%, one in 160,000 cases, making the procedure many times safer than childbirth itself.) Their time in the “life zone” was a test: the two women who changed their minds were whisked up to heaven, while their miscarriage-attempting, stubbornly pro-choice companion is sent straight to H-E-Double-Hockey-Sticks. Dr. Wise, despite being on the right side of the abortion question, also goes to hell for committing suicide. And, oh yeah, their jailer – Loggia – was Satan. Why Satan and a hell-bound doctor were the ones trying to convert the abortion ladies to the pro-life side I can’t tell you; del Vecchio’s theology is evidently more sophisticated than I am.
The real twist here? As Jersey Journal writer Alan Robb notes:
The Life Zone went viral across the internet [last] Friday after blogs The Frisky and Talking Points Memo picked up on the film’s trailer. … But despite garnering more than 20,000 hits on YouTube in the last four days, only fifty people – including the film’s cast and producers – attended this weekend’s screening, and even those who starred in the movie didn’t know how to interpret its twist ending.
It’s impossible to tell from the trailer if the film is bad in a so-bad-it’s-good way, or if it’s just plain awful. I will try to get hold of it when it hits video, and will report back with my results.
In the meantime, if you’re looking for a good horror film set in a creepy hospital, try renting Infection, a Japanese film from 2005. Or, if you’ve got a longer attention span, try Lars Von Trier’s supernatural soap opera The Kingdom, a darkly comic miniseries which takes place in what one might call, paraphrasing Bill Murray’s character in Tootsie, “one nutty hospital.” Both are conveniently available on Netflix instant watch, so you don’t even have to leave your pregnancy dungeon to see them.
EDITED: Added some info on the minimal dangers of abortion procedures.
It’ll teach bitches that bitches ain’t shit. And that if they have sex they better be ready to have a baby.
Also, though, I haven’t seen stats on the matter, and if you’ve seen some, I’d like to see them as well. If not, I guess we’re stuck as two chums disagreeing. *shrug*
Naw. The whole thing smacks of effort. I’d rather mock MRAs. 🙂
I know, NWOslave, it’s totes unfair that not only do women get to NOT fuck you, they can also turn around abort some other guy’s baby, too!
I mean, before you know it, women might start thinking they’re people! Valuable people! And we certainly can’t have that, can we?
What about cases where the mother was going to die before her baby came to term? Is it okay to abort then, or is she still a failure as a woman? Or what about a woman who’s got a high-risk pregnancy and is told she can’t get out of bed for the next four months – if she walks too much and has a miscarriage, does that count as an abortion? Or a woman who gets food poisoning and then miscarries the next day?
Here’s the difference between an abortion and killing someone for their money. You ready for it? It’ll totally blow your mind!
Bodily autonomy.
If someone is plugging you into their life support machine, and they’ll die if you unplug, but you don’t want to be plugged in, you can unplug. An actual human being has bodily autonomy, i.e., the right not to be murdered. A zygote does not – and even if the zygote did, the mother can still ‘unplug’ if she chooses.
@Captain Bathrobe: ” Also, even a paper abortion with the consent of the mother would be open to all manner of abuse and intimidation of the mother by the father (“sign the papers or else, b*tch” or even just “maybe he’ll stay with me if I sign”).”
My impression is that a “paper abortion” means that you are signing away your parental rights. Meaning that you have no involvement with the child whatsoever, you are not a parental figure in any way, and are therefore not going to be involved with the child’s mother. At least, that is how I believe this hypothetical law should be written if it’s going to be truly egalitarian. And I have no issue with that. Most women who receive abortions are socioeconomically underprivileged. Many are also mothers. If women are allowed to state “I cannot afford another child” and therefore take steps to avoid bringing a child into the world, men should be allowed to state the same.
Funny thing is, if I were faced with 20 years probably would have the kid.
And hate it.
Sucks for me, sucks for the kid, sucks for society when they have to pay for the kid because I can’t, sucks more for society when the kid grows up with the scars of an unready and unhappy single parent, sucks sucks sucks.
Shit, NWO, if you just want to see me get lashed I can pretty much do that. You’re gonna have to keep your “not such a princess now, are ya?” comments to yourself though, because I don’t do humiliation unless I like ya.
It’ll teach bitches that bitches ain’t shit. And that if they have sex they better be ready to have a baby.
I think that encapsulates the anti-feminist philosophy rather nicely.
Shit, NWO, if you just want to see me get lashed I can pretty much do that. You’re gonna have to keep your “not such a princess now, are ya?” comments to yourself though, because I don’t do humiliation unless I like ya.
It’s also pretty expensive. Last I checked, the going rate for a pro sub was about $200/hour, and they usually charge a few more hundred dollars on top of that if you want to hit them hard enough to leave bruises. And they also insist on getting a safe word in case the client hits way too hard.
I mean, I’m assuming NWOslave would *have* to visit a pro, because I can’t imagine any woman willing to deal with his bullshit for free.
NWO, I love how you’ve completely neglected to mention that many women get abortions for health reasons. Not that it really matters, since we’ve been making laws based on the principle of bodily autonomy since the origin of English common law, and that principle, plus the right to privacy, dictate that I have a right to decide whether or not something remains inside my body. That principle is also the foundation for laws against rape and assault, by the way. Simply speaking, no one has a right to use my body without my consent. It doesn’t matter if you think the fetus is a person. It doesn’t matter if you think it deserves certain legal rights. Even if you’re right, the law dictates that I have a right to abortion. It is not murder. More along the lines of self defense. Particularly if one happens to be among the women you ignored in your ridiculous post.
Also, NWOslave, I would think those kind of punishments would actually encourage women to cry false rape. Assuming they have the rape exemptions for abortion, might it not be very tempting to a woman in a truly desperate situation to cry rape to get that abortion, whether she actually was or not?
It would just end up hurting both men and women.
If women are allowed to state “I cannot afford another child” and therefore take steps to avoid bringing a child into the world, men should be allowed to state the same.
OK, Sarah, but then the state is potentially on the hook for the cost of raising the child. As I said earlier, the “paper abortion” is a moot point, because there’s no way in Hell that the state is going to allow a biological parent to voluntarily give up their financial responsibility for a child–short of adoption by a third party. I don’t have a problem with the state being required to further subsidize the cost of raising kids–it already does in many, many ways anyway. I doubt, however, our MRA friends would welcome so many more of their tax dollars going to single mothers and their kids than do so already. And the alternative (no support from non-custodial parent, little support from the state) would mean a helluva lot more poor kids than we already have.
tl;dr: It’s an idea that is much better in theory than in practice, IMHO.
@Captain Bathrobe: I’d be interested to see NWO or MRAL offer a solution to the problem you’ve posed. As a progressive I agree personally that the state should contribute in this scenario.
Victoria – I’ll let NWO watch for $100, but the top of my choice actually does it. See, it’s a bargain and it would get out a lot of his bile, too!
Going rate on letting him actually do it is… is no, because he might decide that a safeword infringes on his right to whip me, or something. And then we’d have to have a long discussion on “but shouldn’t a top be able to use a safeword to tell you that he doesn’t want to stop, and shouldn’t you have to respect that?”
I think this is the longest the thread’s actually stayed (sort of) on topic since I became a reader. o.o
Well, NWO’s solution is easy enough: “Twenty lashes, and twenty years in jail. For EVERYONE!”
You’re a braver woman than, I, Holly! I wouldn’t even want to be in the same room with Slavey, much less let him watch me play.
Though, NWOslave, if that’s what you really want to watch, may I recommend Kink.com?
I was going to type “And this is why NWO isn’t an elected official!”. But then I remembered John LaBruzzo, Eric Cantor, and then: Rep. Adams (R, FL) Rep. Aderholt (R, AL) Rep. Akin (R, MO) Rep. Alexander (R, LA)Rep. Altmire (D, PA)Rep. Amash (R, MI)Rep. Austria (R, OH)Rep. Bachmann (R, MN)Rep. Bachus (R, AL)Rep. Barletta (R, PA)Rep. Bartlett (R, MD)Rep. Barton (R, TX)Rep. Bass (R, NH)Rep. Benishek (R, MI)Rep. Berg (R, ND)Rep. Biggert (R, IL)Rep. Bishop (R, UT)Rep. Black (R, TN)
Rep. Blackburn (R, TN)Rep. Bonner (R, AL)Rep. Bono Mack (R, CA)Rep. Boren (D, OK)Rep. Boustany (R, LA)Rep. Brady (R, TX)Rep. Brooks (R, AL)Rep. Broun (R, GA)Rep. Buchanan (R, FL)Rep. Bucshon (R, IN)Rep. Buerkle (R, NY)Rep. Burgess (R, TX)Rep. Burton (R, IN)Rep. Calvert (R, CA)Rep. Camp (R, MI)Rep. Campbell (R, CA)Rep. Canseco (R, TX)…
And I just stopped in the C’s for who voted yes on HR3
Which means you also believe that rulings on Child Support should be strictly enforced, that men should not have an option for a “paper abortion”, and that tax payers should be willing to support children who live at our below the poverty line?
Right?
I’m going to go out on a limb and say, no, he believes nothing of the sort. The right-wing position (and Slavey is nothing if not a right-winger) is that women who get pregnant are solely responsible for raising the kids and that the taxpayer has no responsibility to help unless the kids are thrown into an orphanage or something, and even then the churches will take care of that. The MRA position is that the man should have no financial responsibility for a child he doesn’t want, and certainly not unless he is granted sole legal and physical custody the way God intended.
Essentially, I’m guessing, his position is that women who get pregnant should marry the guy who knocked them up, or they are shit out of luck. But you already knew that, didn’t you? 🙂
http://icanhascheezburger.com/2011/06/08/funny-pictures-cat-comics-tattoos-cats/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+ICanHasCheezburger+%28I+CAN+HAS+CHEEZBURGER%29
Time to go off topic! 😀
Your daily dose of cute! 😀
Now back to your regularly scheduled octagon flame cage match of uber doom! xD
You know, MRAL really does seem borderline reasonable when it comes to Mr. Slave.
Thought of something else to add to my earlier comment: It would be even more tempting for the woman to cry false rape if the man was an asshole and refused to contribute any child support.
Well, NWO’s solution is easy enough: “Twenty lashes, and twenty years in jail. For EVERYONE!”
And the floggings will continue until morale improves.
You’re too easy Holly. as always I answer question.
First off glad to hear you were one of the 70% who make thru the abortion gauntlet. You can be drugged and killed and not “suffer” and be just as dead as little Johnny. And yes if a man maliciously with full intent to cause a woman to abort, (punch in the stomach) or something. 50 lashes and 20 years. Now go and advocate for yourself and your murderous sista’s.
The fatman, a newborn has no intelligence; can’t live on their own. Kill the fucker.
Kirbywarped, Oooo, that fuzzy boundary, that little clump of cells. You’re a clump of cells aren’t ya? A newborn is a little clump of cells too. Hmmm, it’s got less cells than you. Kill it. Rock on murder advocate former zygote Kirbywarp!
Sarah sweetheart, if an unfertilized egg or my seeds were seperate beings you’d have a newborn every month and I could churn them out at will. No conception no life, pretty basic stuff, former fetus Sarah. Now go murder one of them nasty little parasites. Or at the very least help a sista kill someone.
Nobinayamu, equal child custody should be enforced not support, (nice try). And nooooooo to any State support of any kind. Right now you could be volunteering your time in an abortion clinic. Just think of all those nasty fetuses that need killin. Why it’s enough to make your skin crawl.
And to all the rest of you Happy Abortion Day!!! On average 4110 are murdered every day in this country. You’re a bunch of murderer’s if you’ve had an abortion or a bunch of murder advocates.
Though, here’s an interesting question:
In NWOslave’s ideal universe, where women who get abortions are whipped and then jailed, there are a couple unanswered questions.
* Is it set up that a woman is wheeled from the abortion clinic directly to prison? Or is it only women who get caught inducing abortions that are whipped and jailed? How would you catch these women? Just the ones who show up at the ER suffering from botched abortions, or will menstruating women be monitored?
* If a hetero couple has unprotected sex, and the woman gets pregnant and then aborts, does the father share any of the culpability?
* What’s the punishment for an abortion doctor?
* Since abortion is such a serious crime, are women who are careless or suffer an accident in their pregnancy on the hook? Will women who suffered a miscarriage be put on trial?
* What if a woman will die if she doesn’t abort? What if there’s only a 50/50 chance of death? 70/30? 40/60?
NWOaf-huh, so you are not in favor of execution if a woman gets an abortion? And you have no problem destroying a family just because the fact the woman has the freedom to ignore your moralizing?
What a sad little person you are.
You know, MRAL really does seem borderline reasonable when it comes to Mr. Slave.
He has flashes of reasonableness, then he invariably undoes it completely by saying something like: “I value all women except bitches and fat chicks.”