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.
I mean, as someone who understands context, I realize men are privileged in certain areas. For example, men may not have to worry about sexual assault… AS… much. (Although men still must exercise caution at dusk or in strange places for fear of more generic violence, which overwhelmingly affects men). Still, I would classify sexual assault as distinct from assault, and men don’t experience that as much. Still, Schwyzer’s wording suggests that men, as of now, are basically rapist enablers for the small group of rapists (also men). I think that’s slander, frankly.
Men and women aren’t like Nazis and Jews.
Men and women are like Germans and Jews.
In the sense that 99% of Germans (these days, at least) bear no malice toward Jews and would never genocide a fly, but they still have a certain–unavoidable, unchosen–connection with people who did horrible things. And to acknowledge that is not to apologize for themselves, but simply to admit that connection exists and that it does and should make them somewhat uncomfortable.
You know, there’s a difference between disagreeing with someone and wanting to kick their face in.
You don’t like Hugo because you’re jealous of him. You have no idea how hard he worked to get where he is, or what kind of introspection occurred on the way. But he’s got a good, comfortable life – a stable job and a successful marriage, which he ended up in after many years of catting around. And then he has the gall to stand up and say, ‘Gee, being a woman seems like it’s harder than being a man. Hey, men, stop being assholes!’
You also reduce all privilege everywhere to dating and sex. You seem to think it’s easier for women to get dates, therefore, women have more privilege. Well, if that were true, then women wouldn’t be getting raped so often, and believed about it so infrequently. Women wouldn’t be treated like secondary characters in movies, TV and especially video games. Women wouldn’t have their reproductive health under attack. Women would be able to become clergy, and people could accept the idea of God being female without laughing.
Chew on that.
Well couldn’t you say that about any group, if you chose the right issue? For example, women and men are like Nazi eugenicists and subjects, respectively? Or blacks and whites are like muggers and victims, respectively?
“unusually nice for a feminist”
I kind of want this on a t-shirt. Or a button.
It’s not that he’s privileged per se, really, it’s that he has an absolutely amazing talent for making me want to punch him in the face without actually seemingly doing anything.
Yeah, but isn’t that true of everyone you meet?
Not nearly to the extent of Hugo Schwyzer.
“unusually nice for a feminist”
I kind of want this on a t-shirt. Or a button.
Seconded.
I’m just saying, MRAL, in this thread alone you’ve expressed a desire to punch at least three different people in the face. I know it’s a long thread and all, but maybe you need to cut down on caffeine or something.
well you could SAY those things.
But then some annoying Fascist feminist would ask you to support the assertion by pointing out just WHY the simile is effective, and then would destroy your suppositions.
So I suppose at that point you would have no choice but to imagine punching them in the face.
I think most of the Nazi eugenicists were dudes and they did a lot of horrible things to women, actually.
But whatever. It’s not a victim-off. Every group’s suffered bad things and every group’s done bad things. The point isn’t to be the most victimized. The point is not to be a victim anymore.
The only reason I want sexual violence against women acknowledged is because I think that’s the first step in fighting that violence (you can’t fight something if you deny that it exists). I don’t want to be hugged and told that my life is hard; I want to be told “through political action, legislation, and social change, we’re working to reduce the incidence of sexual assault.”
OK, then women who support circumcision/circumcize their sos and boys are like the British Parliament/King George and the American colonies in regards to taxation.
hahahaha – “two-eyed”!
Hugo comes across to me as a well-meaning and thoughtful type, with a lot of wise things to say, ifoccasionally a bit long-winded and prone to taking himself a tad too seriously.
But MRAL, if you hate him so very very much, why not simply not look at his web page, and not watch his videos, and not strike up conversations about him? He’s a whole internet away. You can even install extensions to your web browser which block webpages that contain certain phrases! You need never even read his rage-inducing name ever again, except where you wrote Hugo Schwyzer Must Die in your own blood on the kitchen counter, but your mum will probably manage to clean that off eventually, after a few applications of bleach.
(Similarly, I thoroughly recommend the KittenBlock extension on Firefox which automatically redirects me to a picture of a kitten if I inadvertently click on a link to the Daily Mail. Begone, ye ill-informed right-wing doom-mongers!)
By the way, Holly, “would never genocide a fly” was even funnier than “two-eyed”. Thank you for the giggle!
I actually agree with you, MRAL, about circumcision. I mean, the analogy’s kind of weird, but I do feel uncomfortable and embarrassed about women who act like circumcising their sons is no big deal. Not for the sake of pitying men, but for the sake of speaking to parents and doctors about “hey, seriously think about what you’re doing to a person’s body here.”
MRAL, on the basis of this:
Go fuck yourself. I’m white, and my husband is Asian. He’s 5’4″, does that make him diseased? Or an Omega (rolling my eyes). He’s also a former recon Marine and could kill your lazy punk ass in about 3 seconds.
911 comments! Emergency! Emergency!
Oh, crap, I made it 912. Nevermind.
Or rather I guess hellkell did 🙂 Toooo slowwww!
To bring the focus of the conversation back to the original post:
Mr. Al. You say you’re looking into extreme leg-lengthening surgery, but have you considered …
HUMAN CENTIPEDE SURGERY?
It will actually make you shorter, but several feet longer. Think about it.
Any surgeon who wold perform leg-lengthening surgery on MRAL should be struck off for taking advantage of his bizarre delusions. He’s not even short.
I remember reading stories about the leg-lengthening surgery several years ago and didn’t know they still did it! I think it was originally developed for people who were born with one leg that was much shorter than the other (at least that was what the case study I read was about).
Yeah, the surgery’s been around for a while, but was originally just intended for people with medical deformities like different-sized legs. However, in the past… I don’t know, few decades, as heightism becomes more and more prevalent, the surgery is now utilized for cosmetic reasons sometimes.
I don’t think the Ilizarov proceedure is cosmetic, it’s pretty hardcore. Besides, you are not deformed. You’re just short.
You should get your head fixed before worrying about your height and wonky eye.
My head is fine, I’m pretty smart as I’ve said before. One day I’m going to write an award winning book or screenplay to prove it.
And no, it wasn’t MEANT to be cosmetic, but it can and is used simply to gain a few inches. Not a lot, but if you have an extra, oh, 40K lying around, it can be done. Since I’m going to be financially successful within a few years, I will consider it.