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.
<emOne day I’m going to write an award winning book or screenplay to prove it.
Not based on the writing skills you have shown in multiple threads on this blog, you’re not.
Signed:
English Teacher of 27 years who teaches creative writing
Sigh. Sorry for the borked html.
One day I’m going to write an award winning book or screenplay to prove it.
That was MRAL.
The rest was me.
MRAL: besides everything else, a perfect example of the Dunning-Kruger effect:
http://youarenotsosmart.com/2010/05/11/the-dunning-kruger-effect/
http://psycnet.apa.org/?fa=main.doiLanding&doi=10.1037/0022-3514.77.6.1121
I’m better than you.
Actually, I’m pretty sure I really am. Srs.
MRAL – personally, I love internet anonymity…but if someday you do in fact write an award winning anything, will you tell us what you wrote (which would destroy your anonymity)?
Well, I doubt I’ll still be on Manboobz at that point. But if I was, yes, because at that point I won’t care.
as heightism becomes more and more prevalent,
I have decided I agree with Johnny Pez.
Stand-Up.
One day I’m going to write an award winning book or screenplay to prove it.
Excellent!
One day I am going to jump to the moon! So far, I am just a little bit short.
I guess that comes off as “misandry” to arrogant smug privileged lazy little shits like the one we’re dealing with right now.
HEY! HE’S NOT LAZY!
One day I’m going to write an award winning book or screenplay to prove it.
Katz’s law: Anyone who says “one day I’m doing to write a book” will never do it. If they were going to, they would have already. (Applies to other things, too, but particularly to writing since there’s never anything stopping you from writing a novel.)
I’m better than you.
He’s not entitled. He’s just better.
Don’t say that Katz! I have two draft novels sitting on my computer right now, and I haven’t worked on either one in two months. I WILL WRITE A BOOK SOMEDAY! I have to believe that…
You’ve got a draft. That counts. Partial drafts count as well. MRAL apparently has nothing.
I wrote my first novel when I was 18.
MRAL,
First, some housekeeping: Thank you for acknowledging male privilege. Have you thought about why people talking about male privilege makes you angry? If it’s just Hugo Schwyzer… well, I actually find him insufferably smug also. Did you read my (long) post explaining how therapy works? What did you think of it?
Second, DANGER WILL ROBINSON! Don’t get your legs lengthened! Please don’t do it! First of all, with the kind of money you would be dropping on that you could make your life better in so many other ways. You could go on some fantastic vacations to Brazil and Japan, and then get women interested in you by telling stories about it. You could live in a nicer place, donate money to stop prison rape, and buy really nice clothes (for the ladies). Hell, you could just hire prostitutes or go to bars and throw money around.
But more importantly, I read the website you linked us to and I’m fucking terrified. You realize you won’t be able to walk for 6 months, if the surgery goes *well*? You realize you’ll permanently be more likely to break your legs, or get arthritis, or pull your muscles? You are an average-height dude. If you grew your legs 2 inches, you would still be an average-height dude. There is no way that’s worth half a year of your life.
“He’s not entitled. He’s just better.”
Even though everyone he meets spits on him.
It’s because his pain is so special. He has it worse than anyone else on the planet, ever, because he’s been “fucked by God.”
I feel so sorry for his future therapist.
I am never going to write a book. I wrote like 3 chapters of a vampire novel in high school and it was GOD AWFUL. I am just not a storyteller.
MRAL – MissPrism pretty much summed up my thoughts on Hugo Schwyzer:
“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. ”
I like a lot of his posts, and I occasionally strongly disagree with him or find him a bit smug, but in general I think he’s someone I’d really enjoy getting a cup of coffee with.
Good luck with the therapy, btw.
Kes – my lack of motivation for finishing long stories/novels is one of the things that made me realize I was not meant to be a professional writer – at least, definitely not a fiction writer 😛 (Science FTW.) But I’m rooting for you 🙂 What do you write about?
OKAY! Done this thread xD Almost at 1000 comments! :3 Saucesome!
Apparently there’s a new one and MRAL is on it which means it’s prolly 7 pages long at this point -_-;;; Mrowr… >_>
*stretches* ok…
Ithiliana : not that I thought you were saying it, but just to be clear what I was saying about myself, was that if somebody had asked me a hypothetical situation where my mom HAD chosen to get an abortion, I’d be ok w/ it, since it’s her choice, and if she was happy then that’d be great too (I can’t know obv if she’d be HAPPIER)… not that I thought her life would be better off then or something :] Just to clarify. :]
Also MRAL, you kinda remind me of me when I was in deep dark depression… at least in the “I’m so much smarter and all-seeing than everybody else, and one day I’m going to prove it by being absolutely brilliant and people who judge me will COWER” or something along those lines xD It’s easy to always imagine that, cuz it plays into the whole “life is terrible and everything is everybody else’s fault” thing cuz you’re kinda like the chosen hero nobody believes in, but one day…. and you hang onto that one day, except it doesn’t come b/c you’re looking for this perfect storm when it’s not rly about circumstances, it’s about yourself :
I have no idea who this Hugo person is but I know what The Hugos are and I know who Hugo Weaving is…. does that count? xD I dunno why I have to give comments on somebody I dunno and dun care xD
Also MRAL… you keep saying “for a feminist Holly is really nice” or that Slutwalk is egalitarian not feminist… I guess words are words and ppl can define themselves however they want…. but has it occurred to you that your definition of feminist is not the one that everybody else here is using? Replace every use of the word feminist we use with “Egalitarian” and things might seem brighter to you :] (you seem to have certain “word triggers” that darken your mood and make you go crazy… this Hugo person is one… feminist seems ot be another) and btw, if you want the ability to not be laughed at when you tell Holly not to compare ppl to Jews and Nazis, perhaps you should stop making all those Hitler and Nazi analogues yourself. xD
Tho, now I’m amused cuz radical feminist would become radical egalitarian xDDD I think my next comment will be about those transphobic radical egalitarians and it’ll be BIZARRE xD
Also Pez is hilarious :3
Uh… I am writing an historical novel about the Russian empire in Central Asia featuring the Polish explorer Prezhevalski as a symbol of individuals finding ways to escape repressive societies. And one novel about what happened to Asherah after the Yahwehist preisthood expunged her from the official state religions.
I’m never getting published.
I notice people are getting tired of MRAL dominating threads. I don’t share that opinion, because this whole blog is ostensibly about MRAs and mocking (or engaging) with them. So if MRAs take over the comments that just feels natural to me. But I don’t want my comments to contribute to thread derails that drive away the existing community. Maybe that forum needs to happen, or maybe we need an open thread post to talk to MRA in, or a topical post designed to be about him. Or maybe MRAL would be interested in talking online? I’m a 21 year old white male college student who has dealt with some of the same problems. I’m TigerUdyr on AIM.
MRAL, dude, NO VIOLENT COMMENTS. Seriously. I’m putting you on moderation for a day or so. Seriously, say all the bad things about feminism you want, talk about your eye, I don’t care, but stop talking about punching people.
“Uh… I am writing an historical novel about the Russian empire in Central Asia featuring the Polish explorer Prezhevalski as a symbol of individuals finding ways to escape repressive societies. And one novel about what happened to Asherah after the Yahwehist preisthood expunged her from the official state religions. ”
Go to Lulu.com! I’d be happy to buy both. 🙂
Also MRAL, unlike other ppl here… if you want to do that surgery… and it’s REALLY important to you and you rly think this is something you need to feel right in your body… then go for it…. but make sure you rly do understand it (and some would say your lack of understanding about lots of things would be discouraging in that regard xD and by some, I mean me xDDD ) and maybe you should talk about it w/ a therapist first, make sure this is something you want to do (tho ultimately it’s your body and your choice, and honestly, your LIFE, your choice, nobody will be living your life but you :] )
If it’s rly important to you and rly something that would make your body feel right, who is nebody to tell you what you need and if you should? (I’d be hypocritical if I said that xD given that I want a surgery lots of ppl look down on as freaky and unnecessary and etc… ) Just make sure you do know the risks, and you should prolly talk it out with a therapist also, just cuz there’s a lot else going on obv, with how you feel, all your anger, etc etc etc :] Sometimes when ppl become more comfortable with themselves, they realize that they dun want all the things they thought would make their lives better… and sometimes they still do :]
(for ex, that surgery, I still want it xD But there was a time I was CONVINCED that I was going to need voice training, and honestly, now, I like my voice, even tho it still causes some issues with what other ppl think of it -_-;; But I like it, and I dun want to change it, b/c I’m in a better place where I’m comfortable with myself and it allows me to realize that there are parts of me I only wanted to change b/c I was insecure about myself… other things are more important and still someting I want…. maybe your legs are like that for you… or maybe they aren’t.. you have some time I suspect :] )
Also save up, if this is what you want… I presume it’s expensive.. but if it’s truly important to you, start saving NOW, don’t let this be another thing you whine about how life is unfair and blah blah, nobody appreciates your writing.. ONE DAYYYY ONE DAYYYYY….. that day never comes if you dun work for it… (and hate to break the special snowflake complaining you do, so I’m heading it off now, but there are ppl out there who need surgery to feel right in their bodies and they do save, so you’re not unique if you truly feel this way, and ppl reading this alrdy know what’s going on I suspect, and how I’m RLY HOLDING BACK to give you the benefit of the doubt about how important this is to your body integrity… so don’t whine… SAVE… get another job to get money for the surgery)
But yeah… this is your body, and it’s your life… but my advice would be to talk this out a lot w/ your therapist/counsellor/etc a lot first :]
Also, I freed some comments from first-time commenters from moderation. And one from Victoria. Scroll up and read!
This is my first time posting here, but I’ve been lurking for a few months, creepin’ about and reading people’s posts 🙂
This film sounds like one of my worst nightmares. For reference, I am FTM (pre-transition ANYTHING), and I got sterilized a year ago. Pregnancy is one of my most feared events, but I won’t go into great detail why (mostly because it’s off-topic and not interesting). To imagine having a surprise pregnancy, and being completely unable to do anything about it would pretty much be my personal hell. And that horrific punishment for the “pro-choice” person… wow.
I feel like this kind of platform really isn’t very effective – we’re not supposed to feel empathy for our main characters? Yet they’re locked up against their will? So… we side with the jailers? That seems a strange sort of way to draw people in to the sympathies of the pro-life side. Wouldn’t it be better to make some sort of story where the pro-life people are gently and wonderfully saving these women from themselves or whatever? The way it is, it’s sort of weirdly fetishy. Let’s watch these sinners get PUNISHED and appreciate their punishments! Seems like a strange way to convince people to see your side of things, and really more of a way to indulge your fantasies.
So the goal’s to get to a thousand? Hm…blah blah blah blah blah
@ klopbop
This seems to be the standard fundy wish-fulfillment fantasy: “You are going to be damned to hell for all eternity and my only regret is that I won’t be there to get all Nelson Muntz in your face. Therefore, I am creating a work of fiction that will allow me to vicariously enjoy your suffering.” This is pretty much the whole motivation behind the “Left Behind” books.