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’m not pro-life, so I wouldn’t be in charge of the pro-life movement.
Did you mean pro-choice? I have no problem with the pro-choice community actually, but it’s the FEMINIST community I dislike. There’s overlap obviously (99% of feminists are pro-choice) but not everyone who is pro-choice identifies as feminist.
You mean, someone has invented a way for men to gestate fetuses? Fantastic, then I’m for Reproductive Choice for Men too.
And I’m all in favor of men having choices, too! A man should have contraception and sterilization procedures available for him on demand, with the costs of such subsidized that even the poorest men have access to them. Men should have access to comprehensive sex education, so they fully understand the risks of sexual behavior and how to mitigate them. And a man has just as much bodily autonomy as a woman does, so if a man gets pregnant, he has every right to abort.
I think women’s opinions are LESS IMPORTANT when it comes to prostate cancer funding. Do you agree? If not you’re a hypocrite. Also, can you imagine if I was a prominent person who said that publicly? My life would literally be over.
MRAL, men do not have a War Spleen that women simply lack by virtue of their sex. Men do lack uteruses.
Tell you what, you stay out of abortion discussions and I’ll butt out of discussions of…I dunno…vasectomies? Prostate exams? Writing in the snow?
You’re right, I meant pro-choice, not pro-life.
What you said was, Let me reiterate again that I am pro-choice, I just think the fymynysts handle the issue poorly.
And my question is, if you were put in charge of the pro-choice movement, what would you do differently? Because even though some pro-choice people don’t identify as feminists, most of the leaders of the pro-choice movement do.
No, Choice for Men is what can be termed “paper abortion”. We all know that during sex things can go wrong, mistakes can be made, etc. Women do not need to worry about this because they can get an abortion, or take morning after pills, or whatever. But men have no such option. It is one of the more obvious misandric double standards. So, while the baby is still in the first trimester, men should be allowed to sign away all responsibilities (and rights) to the hypothetical child. Very, very reasonable, right? The feminist hypocrites don’t think so.
I agree. That was easy. Come on, fuckwit, try harder.
No, feminists don’t think that a father should be allowed to punish an innocent child for a disagreement he had with the child’s mother.
Come on, you festering little pustule. Haven’t you got anything original? Oh right, you’re an MRA. Of course you don’t.
Maybe a lot of pro-choicers identify as feminist, but not nearly all, and I think many that do identify in a more abstract way, like, “yeah sure, I guess women should have rights”, not realizing that is no longer what the movement is about.
“No, feminists don’t think that a father should be allowed to punish an innocent child for a disagreement he had with the child’s mother.”
I thought a fetus wasn’t a child? Get your facts straight, dipshit. If the father is “punishing” the child, the mother is killing it.
So, while the baby is still in the first trimester, men should be allowed to sign away all responsibilities (and rights) to the hypothetical child.
So what you’re saying is that a child’s right to be taken care of is less important than a man’s right to have sex without consequences, right?
And you do realize that when a woman gives birth to a child, she’s now just as much on the hook for child care and support as the father, right?
“(99% of feminists are pro-choice) ”
I’d argue it’s more like 100%. A feminist that isn’t for bodily autonomy is like an atheist that believes in God. Mutually exclusive concept. Conservative fake not-feminists like the Independent Women’s Forum do not count.
Maybe a lot of pro-choicers identify as feminist, but not nearly all, and I think many that do identify in a more abstract way, like, “yeah sure, I guess women should have rights”, not realizing that is no longer what the movement is about.
You’re still not answering the question. Answer the question.
I thought I answered the question. I wouldn’t do anything differently. The pro-choice community is different from the feminist community.
Obviously, a fetus is not a child. But if the mother chooses to carry her pregnancy to term, it becomes a child, and the man becomes a father. He then has responsibilities towards that child which are not mitigated by his desire for the child’s mother to get an abortion.
*yawn*
“So what you’re saying is that a child’s right to be taken care of is less important than a man’s right to have sex without consequences, right? ”
The mother is thus responsible for taking care of the child, on her own. If she doesn’t want to… well, she can get an abortion as well.
Sally, my reply to Victoria applies to you too. The mother is now the primary caregiver (we all know this happens regularly anyway), and if she cannot or does not want to provide, she can follow in the father’s footsteps and get an abortion as well.
I have a feeling MRAL would allow abortion…in certain circumstances. Maybe force it in some circumstances.
In other words, pro-choice for men, anti-choice for women. One needn’t be against abortion to be anti-choice (see: China)
Like I said on the other thread, I am 100% in favor of male abortion so long as:
1) It takes place in the first trimester of pregnancy
and
2) The man has the fetus removed from his uterus
Fine, then – what do you think is wrong with the way feminists are handling the issue of being pro-choice? You said you thought feminists handle the issue poorly. I’m trying to pin you down on precisely what the feminists are doing in the pro-choice movement, which the non-feminists are not doing in the movement, that you find so objectionable.
Is it just that the feminists don’t think you ought to be allowed to abandon a child?
This is where the distinction between fetus and baby is an important one to make.
One cannot abort children. Once they exist, they must be taken care of. Now, if you are in favor of taxing all men and women and having the government raise them instead, feel free to make the case for it. But currently, we lay the primary responsibility for a child’s welfare on the shoulders of the child’s biological parents.
She can’t get an abortion once it becomes a child, because by then, it’s already been born. Try again.
By the way, I will name one issue where I think ciswomen’s opinions matter less–circumcision. I do get genuinely ooked out when women treat circumcising their sons as no big deal. A person with a penis, circumcised or not, has a lot more first-hand knowledge and a lot more personal stake, and so is entitled to have his opinions valued more.
No, I am for choice for women and men, at all times, no matter what. The thing is, choice for women is allowed and the right is fairly stable (both wishful-thinking Republicans and fear-mongering feminists would have you think differently, but there’s no way the government will ever overturn Roe v. Wade). With men, choice is nonexistent, so forgive me for thinking it’s a bigger issue.