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.
MRAL-learn to google. Seriously.
*goes back to the Communist Hive Vagina*
@Sarah – oh, absolutely! And that is why I think it’s extraordinarily important to keep abortion legal. But some of the sex education in this country is astoundingly bad, and even when people (especially young people) DO know how to effectively use contraception, their financial and/or home/social conditions make it hard for them to get that.
I hate my brother. I don’t think that’s normal.
Hating someone is normal for you.
“It’s a community thing that ignores the individual and paints in absurdly broad strokes. Seem to describe FUCKING FEMINISM to a fucking tee.”
Did… Did no one catch the absolute whale of irony in there? No? *walks away shaking head*
My man’s father remarried two more times and did the same thing each time. Once the marriage was over, he wrote a check and promptly ignored his children. He’s trying to have a relationship with his father now that they’re both adults but it’s difficult. I don’t know that I’d bother but he wants to try. Like I said, his optimism is sexy.
And Holly, I really don’t mean to be all sanctimonious about this. I shit you not, your story reminded me of two of my very best girlfriends. I’d lock their mothers up and throw away the keys if I could. I’ve actually had words with one of them; it wasn’t pretty.
Like anything where it’s all just the luck of the draw this bio-parent/bio-child system is deeply flawed.
katz, that definition seems to pretty much describe feminism. Your point?
Hating your siblings is totally normal.
And stop it with your stupid double standards. Height does matter for a woman! People notice! They comment! They treat me like a freak! But it’s also not the end all and be all! Move beyond your very average height, man.
And I am totally a Fucking Feminist.
Sallystrange is attempting to teach me to read the whole thread before I comment.
Feminism isn’t about a nation or race, isn’t centralized, doesn’t have a leader… and really, the only rules it wants to impose are super restrictive things about “treat women the way you treat men except where significantly biologically necessary to make exceptions.”
On Beta Colony (in Lois McMaster Bujold’s sci-fi series), every girl, when she reaches menarche, has a little “coming-out” party. She has a party, she gets her ears pierced, she gets new clothes, and she gets outfitted with a permanent birth control implant.
Subsequently, if she wants to reproduce, she and her partner apply for a parenting license, which is only obtainable after taking a few classes and demonstrating financial stability.
Sounds alright to me. But I suppose that’s because I’m a Hitlerian fascist feminist.
People NOTICE, obviously, but in terms of looks, unless you are SUPER tall or SUPER short, it’s not as big of a deal. This is because women are arrogant and hyperprivileged and they all think they are entitled to alpha dick. I think, honestly, there may be an epidemic- not many men get sex, it’s just the alphas that are fucking all the women. The abstinent men are then shamed into silence. I don’t know this, it’s just a suspicion. That’s the way it is with me, anyway. If I said what I said in the real life, people would laugh. It’s misandry.
@ Zombie
haha, “jinx!”
“Seem to describe FUCKING FEMINISM to a fucking tee.”
Sounds like it’s time for little boys to go to bed.
If I think I’m entitled to alpha dick, why am I happily dating a “beta”?
I could ask this same question about–most men not meeting “alpha” qualifications–most of the partnered women I know.
Yeah but I mean, I really HATE my brother. I want to beat him up. I feel bad about that, but he has been given everything by God, and yet he acts like a total idiot.
No, MRAL, people aren’t laughing because they hate men. They are laughing because YOU are ridiculous.
As has been pointed out a zillion times, ascribing people’s disapproval of your rank stupidity and assholery to a blanket hatred of men is a handy crutch for avoiding actually doing anything about your stupidity and assholery.
@Holly: I am also 5’1″ Hurray!
And MRAL, if you’re feeling bad, let tell you a little bit about my genetic make up:
-Bipolar disorder? Check. Runs on both sides of the family. So does obsessive-compulsive disorder. Parents and brother escaped it but I am treated to crippling depression on a somewhat regular basis.
-Weird genetic blood disorder? Check. Cue chronic pain and fatigue because my spleen thinks it’s Pac Man and devours too many of my red blood cells. I’ll lose two of my internal organs eventually. One is my spleen. When it comes out I’ll be immuno-compromised for the rest of my life.
Eye? You want to talk about eyes? My dad is going blind. I’ve had glasses since I was eight.
I’ll trade my weird blood disorder for your alpha family, ok? You can have all my medical bills. Warning, though: oncologists are expensive shit.
And here ends my self pity. I promise. I am not looking for sympathy. My life is ok. But you need some perspective badly.
MRAL, you’re not illiterate. You can read the definition of fascism that Katz provided or look it up on the internet yourself. Either way, you know perfectly well that you’re repeatedly using the word fascist the way 14 year olds call their principals fascists when they get caught smoking pot in the stairwells. You’re using it to mean “I don’t like you, so there!”
It’s kind of cute when 14 year olds say it, especially if they’re like all emo and stuff. But it’s significantly less cute when it’s done by an adult who is actively in pursuit of higher education. If you don’t want to be treated like you’re stupid, don’t pretend to be stupid.
I refuse to discuss your appearance, your family, or any of the other shit you love to bring up in an attempt make every fucking thread ALL. ABOUT. YOU.
I should specify I could deal much better with my deformities (sans the eye, which is a REALLY fucking big deal) much better if that was it. But I’ve been hit by four or five in an alpha family, no less. Sometimes I just want to laugh at my constant metaphorical rape by the Powers.
MRAL, I think you’re using the label “feminism” to describe a lot of things that make you angry, about 1% of which have anything to do with actual feminism.
If you hang out with any hate group, they’ll tell you that all your problems are due to the people they hate–which is an appealing and strangely soothing thought. “My weaknesses are all a result of me being undermined by the evil foreigners/Jews/blacks/government/feminists!” has a certain wrapped-up-with-a-bow, defined-target appeal to it.
But it’s not true. And not only does it make you kind of a dick, but it makes your problems seem bigger than they are, it makes you feel like you can’t solve any of your problems as long as feminism exists, and it keeps you from facing those problems head-on.
Citation needed.
careful, he’ll reference Jonah Goldberg.
MRAL, you need to find yourself a hobby that doesn’t involve trolling this blog.
I recommend juggling.
How am I supposed to face my problems head on? As I’ve said it’s all genetics, so they are facts that cannot be changed. If feminism hadn’t turned the sexual arena into a bizarre eugenics (again- evokes Hitler) state in which only the top 1% of men can reliably get women while 70%-ish of women can get dick on command, it wouldn’t be QUITE as big of a deal.
MRAL, you have not been raped. That is deeply offensive to survivors. You have not been raped. I have not been raped because I have a couple of genetic disorders, either. But I have been sexually assaulted, and it pisses me off when people throw that word around.
Sally, I beat you; I’ve been wearing glasses since I was SEVEN!
not many men get sex, it’s just the alphas that are fucking all the women.
Dammit, men, he’s ON TO US.
….but wait, I’m an alpha?