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"The Life Zone" doesn't sound like it is going to fare too well.  Only 50 people (including those that worked on the movie) showed up to the premier. Even though over 20,000 people viewed the trailer on Youtube, this doesn't surprise me. It's fun to gawk at for a few minutes, but to sit through something like that for over an hour, well, that'd be difficult. My husband couldn't even sit through all of the trailer, which is what, two minutes?

Filmmaker Del Vecchio claims that, "I think the audience will walk away not knowing what the filmmaker's position is, it gives both sides of the coin."

I disagree. Strongly.

The plot:

The plot as it played out: Three pregnant women wake up imprisoned in a hospital. Their only other contact is with their jailor - a mystery man played by Robert Loggia who occasionally appears on video to answer the women's questions and explain the consequences of their disobedience - and an obstetrician, actress Blanche Baker as Dr. Victoria Wise, who will deliver the captive women's babies whether or not their pro-choice views are changed.

The captive women are clothed in nightgowns and served warm milk and given opportunities to read books and watch movies explaining both sides of the abortion debate. Among the films is Del Vecchio's own 2009 feature, O.B.A.M. Nude, a satire of the Obama presidency.

As Dr. Wise explains it, "we'll have an abortion think tank over the next seven months."

The pregnant women are often tortured by dreams of death and despair - montages of swarming bees, swirling tornadoes and speeches by Hitler one night, African-Americans and foreigners shouting "abort me" in foreign tongues the next - while Dr. Wise experiences flashbacks to the dissolution of her marriage which fell apart when she learned she couldn't bear children. Her parents cursed her for not taking better care of her body, a poor diet, too much work, while her husband - The Karate Kid's bad sensei Martin Kove - divorces her, leaving her for a woman capable of having his children, a moment that pushes Dr. Wise to desperate measures.

Finally two of the three women come to accept human life exists inside them and less anxiously anticipate giving birth. But Staci still refuses to accept that the life inside her is anything more than a fetus. In her third trimester she attempts to injure herself and miscarry. It has unintended consequences.

All three women deliver and finally the first of the plot's twists are revealed. Staci, most opposed to pregnancy, is blessed with two children - twins - while her fellow captives only give birth to one baby each.

Later, Staci wakes up. The two new mothers are no longer captives, they've presumably ascended to heaven with their babies. It's revealed all along the women had been in Purgatory, after having died on the operating table of abortion clinics. But because Staci attempted to miscarry even after a second chance at motherhood, and because she never accepted the error of her ways until she experienced the physical joy of giving birth, of seeing her children for the first time, she will be doomed to eternity in Hell.

Loggia is Satan and he informs Staci she will spend all eternity in a cycle of pregnancy and childbirth and Dr. Wise will forever be her doctor, as the movie's final twist plays out: Wise too will spend eternity in Hell. She was so weak she committed suicide when her marriage collapsed and must suffer the fate of forever bringing life into the world, endlessly having to appreciate what she did not value on Earth.

Now, we all know where I stand on the abortion debate (and if you don't know, please, leave a comment! I will be happy to go into excessive detail about my stance), so we won't bother getting into all that. However, I fail to see how audiences, barring a select 'special' few, could think that this movie could possibly show "both sides of the coin."

The unwavering pro-choice girl is shown as pig-headed, and unwilling to admit the obvious (one girl says to her, "even you have to admit what we have inside us is a baby now!"). The part about the people shouting "abort me" is disturbing. Many pro-lifers (especially the more vocal ones and, sadly, ones in Congress) mistakenly believe that doctors are preying on non-caucasions specifically. Billboards have gone up claiming that Planned Parenthood wants to kill black babies. I would not be surprised if the movie pushes that angle.

In this film, all three women die while undergoing an abortion. I am going to assume that the movie takes place in the United States during a time when abortion is legal. Abortion is one of the safest medical procedures when legally performed. It is more likely that a woman will die during pregnancy than during an abortion. According to the Annals of Internal Medicine, the mortality rate of an abortion is "less than 1 death per 100 000 procedures." The mortality rate of pregnancy and childbirth is 11 times greater. So, I find it a bit iffy that these three women died during a simple and low-risk procedure.

I know, poetic license. I'm one for facts, though, not truthiness.

Now, the women that gave in to their captor and gave birth like good girls went to heaven. The woman that fought tooth and nail to be in control of her own body is sent to hell, forced to forever relive pregnancy and childbirth, something she never wanted in life (nor death).

Does any of that sound pro-choice to you?