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.
Wow–this thread really turned into the “octagon flame cage match of uber doom!” (Ami, you’re a fantastic writer xD) And you understand your way around a metaphor unlike SOME mrals.
Ami: My mother had an illegal abortion several years before I was born because she was supporting my father through his doctoral program (YEP, working, FULL TIME, paying for a MAN to get a degree, which happened a lot in the 50s). She had just decided to leave him when she found she was pregnant with me. It was….weird finding that out (after the divorce which came after dad ran away with grad student)
I don’t have rights to spout about her life and what was and what might have been–I’ve often thought her life would have been much better if she’d had another abortion. But she made it a fantastic life, and she’s 83, and a couple of years ago, she moved her 91 year old LOVER in, and boy do they have a great life. It’s fantastic.
p.s. I live in Texas! But I may be in Boston when Pop Culture has its conference there (next year I think)
HIPPODAMEIA:
“Don’t be the twisted little fucker who has to make every conversation about himself. No-one cares about you.”
TOO LATE!
And yet people continue to interact with him! And apparently this is the best place he has (online) to go (of course when he said he couldn’t say what he does in real life without being laughed at, I sneered–online interaction is real, and he is being laughed at, but, oh, well. He clearly doesn’t think any of the rest of us are real).
So MRAL, how’d you fancy being 55, nearly 56, queer, fat, tattooed, and an English professor in rural Texas living with seven cats, two dogs, in a lifelong partnership with a woman?
I personally don’t think you’ve got the balls to live the lives many of us on this thread have lived and survived for twice as long or more than you’ve been alive. And I say that…metaphorically.
Will be at work on the road a lot today, people, but hope to see another 800 or so comments when I return!
A meetup? Oh, that’d be fun. A bunch of smug nerds reading MRA lines to each other and snorting derisively.
Hey, I got a question about this abortion/anti-abortion craze – just how many abortions have you feminists had, or are planning to have, that this is such a huge, hysteria-inducing issue?
I am so sick of MRAL bitching about the tragedy of being short while simultaneously disparaging “fat chicks” on the ground that one’s weight can be altered while height can’t. MRAL, you actually CAN increase your height if you want. On the possibility that a really disturbed person may be reading this and actually consider doing this, I won’t provide a link, but there IS a cosmetic surgery clinic in Eastern Europe (where regulations of cosmetic surgery are a bit more relaxed than here) that specializes in increasing patient’s height. They’ve been around for at least 20 years now. The procedure involves cutting into the patient’s legs and attaching extendable hardware to his bones, with external mechanical controls. Afterwards, the screws are turned a tiny little bit every day, gradually lengthening the hardware and forcing the body to grow more bone tissue. So not only do you get taller, you get longer legs. Sweet!
Of course, it takes about 10 months to grow a mere 3 inches. And it’s excruciatingly painful every minute of every day. And risky as hell. And the potential side effects and complications are nightmarish. And, because you have to get treatment every day and be closely monitored, you have to basically live at the clinic or at least nearby. But it isn’t really any more extreme than what a “fat chick” would have to do to go down 10 dress sizes and stay that way. So maybe now we have the necessary justification to bash short men for being such eyesores and not doing enough to make themselves look more presentable.
Yeah, I actually have been looking into that procedure, Amused, as I said above. But it’s very difficult to do discreetly, obviously, certainly not until I’m 21.
Oh, and sure, to whoever above, I recognize that male privilege exists. I think female privilege is more common though.
So, the real problem is not that it’s extremely risky and hideously painful. The real problem is that someone might find out you did it.
I’m telling you, MRAL, stand-up comedy is your true calling.
I see your act as being sort of a cross between Rodney Dangerfield and Don Rickels. First you spend five minutes bitching and moaning about how you can’t get any respect due to your slightly-below-average height and slightly skeevy eye, then you insult the audience for laughing.
I live about an hour south of DC, so I’ll definitely consider any meet-ups for that area. My therapist and family are encouraging me to get out of the house more.
MRAL – as you always discuss the way you look, I have grown quite curious. You mentioned in a previous post that in a different post you posted (or linked to one). Is this true? Do you remember what thread it was on or can you post another? Sorry, maybe I am way off base, just curious since you are always talking about your eye.
Also, I grew up with a guy who was short and frequently made fun of for his height. During our teen years, his doctor actually prescribed a certain kind of steroids to help him gain a couple of extra inches. I’m not sure if it worked (I mean, we were growing during that time anyway), and I’m not sure if this is only something available during adolescence to just amp up the normal growing, but it may be worth looking into before you do the more extreme procedure.
Tofu – are you Urbana, Iowa? I grew up close to there, although I have since moved to Kansas. Not sure I would make a Chicago meet up, but I’ll try!
Oh are we talking meetups? SF Bay area in da house!!
It’s not that risky if done properly, with medical attention. As for pain, I have a ridiculously high pain threshold (part of being hardened by years of abuse). Therefore, indeed, the biggest problm is the length of time and the fact that someone may find out.
Here’s an information center for those interested: http://www.makemetaller.org/
DC Meetup? I’m in DC, AND I can bake brownies!
Oh, and MRAL – I agree with those who have said that you should talk to a professional. Therapy is made to help people deal with those issues they cannot change! Working to accept what you see as your flaws can immensly improve your life! Personally, I am all for people owning and rocking what makes them weird!
(part of being hardened by years of abuse).
Noted without comment.
Rachel, I posted a pic of my eye in an earlier thread…. I don’t think I have the picture anymore though, I’ll look when I get home (I’m in the library right now, doing some work).
Also, in regards to the travesty of a film this post is about: What is up with the doctor saying “all of you will give birth on the same day”? Do the film-makers think that being pregnant is like having your period, in that if you are around other pregnant women, you’ll sink up due-dates? Cause I’m pretty sure it doesn’t work like that…
You want to know another reason I fucking hate Hugo Schwyzer? He’s the smuggest most cloying little prick I’ve ever met. He has the nerve to stand up and talk for all men, to condemn all men and fucking talk about the aupposed all-powerful “male privilege”. What the fuck does that asshole know about hardship? He’s a rich, two-eyed, 6’1 professor who probbly has long fingers and has had tons of sex by his own admission. Fuck him. FUCK HIM. GOD DAMN IT. [COMMENTS REDACTED. –df]
@ Kes
Apparently it’s all a performance being staged by God/Lucifer. As an early poster noted, this film makes explicit the fundy belief that pregnancy and childbirth are God’s way of punishing women for being women.
Rage, rage against the guying of the height.
I was going to post something about women prefering the Alpha-Alpha-Alpha-Omega Jehova over Alpha-Alpha-Beta Satan, but I think it’ll get lost in the nearly 900 posts…
/sad
Hey, why don’t you fuck off, mkay? I challenge abyone who reads Hugo Fuckwad to tell me he doesn’t get on your nerves sometimes. And you guys supposedly agree with him. That gifted by God, warm slimy cloying piece o shit probably pisses me off more than all the people who insult me here combined. He’s an alpha, a prime specimen of men (through no work of his own, of coure, just luck) and he has the FUCKING GALL to stand up and speak for all men, when he is the top 1% of men (again, through no work of his own, that pansy little mother fucker little piece of shit fuck shit shithead).
Never heard of him.
Man. I had no idea that having short fingers sucked so much. Better go curl up in a corner and cry about it some more.
MRAL I’m guessing this won’t sink in but THERAPY!!! THERAPY!!! THERAPY!!!
All those things you are saying about how it won’t help and you have real problems that talking can’t help, I said those. I said them and I believed them, I was beyond help there was nothing I could do. My life was destined to be filled with misery and be lived alone. And I was wrong.
It took almost failing out of college and my parents finally forcing me to get help to start my recovery. I had to be(metaphorically) dragged kicking and screaming to get help. And it was the best thing to have ever happened in my life.
My problems weren’t yours, though there was overlap. I was depressed and socially anxious. I remember not going shopping for food because I was afraid of talking to the clerk. That’s fucked up. I was miserable and wanted to be dead. And I hear echoes of myself in your words. I didn’t date a girl or lose my virginity until I was 23. And yet a year later I met the girl I live with. Things can get better.
You’re angry, so was I. I wasn’t a violent person and I’m not now but I thought violent things. I wanted the whole world to burn sometimes, that’s what misery can do to you. Hate can feel good sometimes, I understand that. But it doesn’t help. That rage at the world, at women spitting on you, at your brother, I get it. I remember my version of it. And I don’t miss it. I don’t think it means you are some sort of psychopath, but I think it means you could become one if you let it build for decades. I wondered what mine might have been if it had festered for so long. I understand it but its still not healthy and it scares people. Therapy can help you get rid of it and try to make room for something more pleasant.
Other people are telling you your physical problems are no big deal, but I know better. I’m not saying they are actually that bad but that I understand that to you they are huge. I understand that disconnect between the world for others and the world for you. I get it, and I understand that those problems are almost impossible to deal with and people telling you they aren’t that bad doesn’t help. You know they are bad at a level they can’t. I’ve been there and I hear you.
But the thing is they are there and no amount of wallowing in your problems or dwelling in them or struggling with them is going to make them better. You are too close to the problem. You need a fresh perspective. And that’s what a therapist can help you find. They won’t magically fix you. They won’t say a few sentences and make your whole world better. God I wish they could. But they can help you see where the mistakes in your thoughts are, they can teach you to love who you are and to deal with life. We all miss things about ourselves, we all make assumptions that aren’t true, handle situations or feelings poorly, and a therapist can you help you get past that.
Really what have you got to lose? I mean sitting and talking with someone for a hour a few times has to be easier than having your legs broken and stretched, right? If it doesn’t work you can always do the leg thing. Hell if its the right path for you a therapist could probably help you get on that path. I know I was too stubborn to accept that I needed therapy until it was almost too late, I hope you are smarter than I was. I hope you don’t have to hit bottom to get better.
Short fingers are a minor thing, quite honestly. Probably connected to height.