The Life Zone (2011)
2/10
"You're In Hell! Welcome To Your Eternity."
31 March 2015
Warning: Spoilers
I found this item by chance while looking up the films of Charles Durning. The plot appeared that it might be of some interest. This film was described as "a thriller with a message." Three women, who had been expecting to abort their babies, wake up to find that they -- along with a doctor -- have been kidnapped by what they believe to be a fanatical anti-abortion group. Their "jailer" addresses them from a closed-circuit television. It is his intention to compel them to go through with their unwanted pregnancies and deliver their babies. Instead of your usual horror fare, the women are dressed in nightgowns and fed decent food, while reading and watching propaganda on why abortion is bad.

They are shown purportedly video taped messages from their families and they settle into a routine. Inevitably, they go into labour -- simultaneously! The babies are delivered -- one woman (the most outspoken pro-abortionist of the three) gives birth to twins.

Afterwards, the one who had twins is sick and in pain. After examining her, the doctor is dumbfounded to discover something that she says "is impossible." She informs the woman she is still pregnant. The woman says "it can't be." Suddenly the two other women are gone; it turns out that the woman had died on the abortion table and the doctor had committed suicide -- they are, and always have been, in Hell.

The story for most of the film went along a clear and straight forward premise. It turned out to be a blasé story with little intrigue for the most part. But the twist at the end ruined it even on that level.

The whole premise that a grumpy old man kidnapped three pregnant women from abortion clinics to force them to give birth is plausible. The whole story presents that premise with the videos from the families and the interaction of the three women and doctor. The reveal at the end that only the one girl and the doctor are real and that they are in hell totally invalidated everything that happened throughout the movie. The entire story of the film is shown to have been a deception; there's just no reason for such a development. They are in Hell -- there's no reason for them to be told otherwise. And the faked videos from the families really is a stupid turn. They are dead so their families wouldn't be sending any such messages -- there's no reason for it.

The twist at the end only made a story that was lack-luster at best, a complete waste of time.
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