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.
Okay, I’m back. I think that a man who does not want to be a part of his child’s life, then, if he makes it clear at the beginning of pregnancy, should not be denigrated for being a “deadbeat dad”. He should still pay child support in regards to what he personally can afford, however, he is not to be attacked morally for his lack of emotional support. It’s his life.
The problem with this is that a “paper abortion” does not actually prevent a child from coming into the world. What it does is bring a child into the world without the full support that child needs to survive and thrive. It’s a bad idea, full stop.
I love it when people bring up the old saw, “Gosh wouldn’t you hate it if your mom aborted you?!?” Obviously not because I wouldn’t exist. But in my case, it’s a bit more interesting than that. See, I actually owe my life to an abortion. My father, when he was 18, got his 17-year-old then girlfriend pregnant. She had an abortion. If she hadn’t, I know my dad, and I know he would not have left his hometown to go to the college, which is where he met my mother. If abortion hadn’t been legal at the time, I probably wouldn’t exist and neither would my brother and sister. What now, huh? Huh?
WRT imprisoning women who get abortions – in 2008, 1.2 million women got abortions.The total number of inmates in the USA is about 2.4 million. If we started locking up women who get abortions, even assuming we only catch a fraction of them, it would only take a few years to double the prison population. And America already has the highest rate of incarcerated citizens IN THE WORLD. Yes, we beat out Russia some years ago.
NWOaf’s comments merely reinforce my previous conclusion about Christians, conservatives, and anti-choicers: the basis of their ideology is a failure to think things all the way through. Those that DO think things through inevitably reveal the depth of their utter hatred for women, or gays, or people of color, or whatever the Other du jour is.
Dr. Wise experiences flashbacks to the dissolution of her marriage which fell apart when she learned she couldn’t bear children. Her parents cursed her for not taking better care of her body, a poor diet, too much work, while her husband – The Karate Kid’s bad sensei Martin Kove – divorces her, leaving her for a woman capable of having his children, a moment that pushes Dr. Wise to desperate measures.
Dude obviously does not know anything about women’s reproductive system. They very rarely shut down because of a poor diet and too much work, unless she’s on the verge of starvation already.
And in a world where adoption is a possibility, along with surrogacy and IVF (which, as a women’s doctor, she certainly would have been aware of), she decides to kill herself?
So not only should women be forced to carry to term every time they get impregnated, they also shouldn’t be ambitious or even want a career more stressful than, oh, I don’t know, second assistant caterer. Because then they’ll be infertile and will get divorced and, without a husband or baby, will have nothing left in their lives and no recourse except suicide. Only suicide is a sin! So keep those expectations low, ladies, and never forget your role as Sperm Incubator!
sarahejones, I’m pretty sure Slavey was replying to me, not you. His replies make sense to my stuff. But, Slavey? Don’t call me sweetheart either.
If I had been aborted I would never have existed in the first place. Duh.
And the movie should be named Revenge of the Sluts. And should actually be about promiscuity women taking their revenge on the rest of society by having lots of happy, unapologetic, kinky, consensual sex.
MRAL – I agree with you, then. A guy who pays up may not be the ideal dad, but he’s not a deadbeat either, and since we can hardly force emotional involvement, that should be a reasonable option.
OH MY GOD THIS THREAD IS MOVING WAY TO FAST I’M JUST GOING TO ABORT SOME BABIES OVER HERE BY MYSELF BECAUSE I’M NEVER GOING TO CATCH UP
he is not to be attacked morally for his lack of emotional support.
Are we at least allowed to think he’s kind of a dipshit? I mean, in the privacy of our own heads? I think the Lyndon LaRouche folks are also kind of dipshits, too.
NWO are you really unable to tell the difference between a zygote and/or fetus and a living, breathing, learning child? Really? I know other posters have corrected you on your belief that newborns don’t have intelligence. Newborns are actually learning at an incredible rate.
But seriously, are you this fucking stupid?
Well I guess that explains why you believe that abortion is murder but, hey, a kid born to parents to poor to pay for chemotherapy should just go fuck its self, right? No Medicaid with your tax dollars!
You don’t have kids do you? I bet you two fat men that you’ve never been married and you don’t have any children and it chaps your ass.
You’re allowed to think what you want (again, this is not a feminist fascist Hitler thought police state), but if you do I also think you’re kind of a dipshit.
@MRAL – yes, I agree that a father (or a mother) shouldn’t be ostracized for not taking care of their child, if they are contributing what they can (same for the reverse.) That is a cultural narrative we could do without.
MRAL, when you say he shouldn’t be attacked morally, what do you mean? Are we stoning fathers who don’t emotionally support their children, somewhere?
Once more NWOslave, a pregnancy can be aborted not a fetus, and certainly not a person. The pregnancy existed and that is what is aborted in an abortion. I am unsure of how to make that any clearer should you still fail to comprehend it.
The culture is stock full of hatred for dads who skip out on their “child rearing responsibilities”. Fuck that. The child is not entitled to two parents. I did fine with just my mom.
I’m kind of getting a kick out of imagining myself at the head of a vast army of goose-stepping fascist feminists.
See, MRAL, when you run with MRAs, NWOaf is the kind of person you run with. Fascist totalitarian who wants to double the prison population of the most incarceration-happy country in the world. He’s also into torture. Is that the sort of ally you’re really looking for?
and look how well you turned out…
“What it does is bring a child into the world without the full support that child needs to survive and thrive. It’s a bad idea, full stop.”
But who’s to say that father is actually going to contribute, or if he’s going to be a deadbeat? There’s no guarantee that child will receive the necessary financial support (if that’s how we’re defining it). And I’d argue that a reluctant father is likely to contribute toward a child’s support. Again, I would solve this with state funding–let’s redirect some away from our ridiculously exorbitant military budget!-but that’s just me.
MRAL there are few if any consequences for men who support their children financially but withhold emotional support and do not actively parent. Don’t worry your head. A few errant tongue clucks and the uncharitable thoughts of their child’s mother aren’t really hardships.
I mean, you know all about hardships right?
clarification – in the situation where this is decided early in the pregnancy…although really, I think that not having one of your parents around is probably better then a bad parent? will have to think about this more.
I never got to go to DisneyWorld, therefore nobody should. Shut it down!
Now you just sound like a kid throwing a tantrum. Obviously your mom did okay, but imagine if you’d also had a supportive dad! Perhaps you’d be a tad less miserable.
Edit: I meant less likely in my last post.
To be honest, as someone who had one good parent and one horrible one, I’m with MRAL–if someone doesn’t want to be involved, sometimes staying away is the best thing they can do for the kid. It’s not the best thing, but honestly, if they’re still giving financial support and not doing anything to screw with the kid and custodial parent, sometimes it’s not the worst thing.
Science is not the right wing anti-choice movement’s strong point.
Well, I certainly thinking having one good parent is better then having one good and one bad, I’m still going to think poorly of someone who skips out on their kids. I don’t care what MRAL says, it’s just poor form.
I think I turned out pretty well morally, intellectually and physically, to the extent that was possible given my many disadvantages granted genetically by an asshole God.
Oh, look I caught up after all and I didn’t even have to kill any babies to do it.
And, MRAL, I’m still confused on what feminism and Hitler have to do with one another.