The Life Zone Explained

The Life Zone
Director:	Rod Weber
Producer:	Kenneth del Vecchio
Music:	Kenneth Lampl
Cinematography:	Danny Buosanto Sherri Kauk
Editing:	Rod Weber
Studio:	Justice for All Productions
Runtime:	81 minutes
Country:	United States
Language:	English
Budget:	$1.5 million

The Life Zone is an anti-abortion horror film written and produced by Kenneth del Vecchio, directed and edited by Rod Weber and starring Robert Loggia, Blanche Baker, Lindsey Haun, Angela Little, and Nina Transfield. It was released as a straight-to-DVD in 2011.

It was panned by critics, with the main criticism on its anti-abortion message, but also focus on bad acting, screenplay, and lack of scares.

Plot

Three women who had gone to get abortions wake up to find that they have been kidnapped and are being held captive by a doctor who intends for them to deliver their unwanted babies. Instead of the usual horror fare, the nightgown-garbed women drink warm milk while reading and watching propaganda on why abortion is wrong.

After a while, two of the women decide against having abortions and agree to have their babies, while the third still resists and even tries to force a miscarriage.

Suddenly it transpires that the two women who gave birth were never real; it turns out that the die-harder died on the abortion table and the doctor had committed suicide, and both of them are in Hell.

Reaction

Fewer than 50 people—including the cast and producers—attended the premiere. When interviewed afterwards, several cast members could not decipher the ending of the film.^[1]

Reviews of the film were generally negative:^{[2] [3] [4] [5]}

• "How Insane is the Pro-Life Horror Flick The Life Zone? Let Us Count the Ways" wrote Movieline.com ^[6]
• "The Life Zone Trailer Introduces Us to Pro-Life, Forced-Breeding Horror" - Movies.com ^[7]
• "Low-Budget Horror 'Life Zone' Pushes Pro-Life Message... Sorta" - NextMovie.com ^[8]
• "This Exists: NJ State Senate Candidate Ken Del Vecchio Offers Anti-Abortion Version Of Saw" - Mediaite.com ^[9]
• "The First Trailer for The Life Zone Tackles Abortion and Forced Birthing" - This is one of the first independent films that this film lover has seen on YouTube, which has several more dislikes than likes. The comments for this film are pretty scathing, too. - 28 days later analysis ^[10]
• "Find yourself on the receiving end of an unwanted pregnancy? Thinking about having an abortion? How dare you assume that you can do with your body what you wish! Finally there's a madman ready to stifle that ludicrous conclusion! A right-to-lifer with methods so misguided that the recently departed Jack Kevorkian would call him extreme!" - Dread Central ^[11]
• "If Del Vecchio and director Rob Webber would have turned out a decently directed and written movie, it wouldn’t have mattered if they were arguing the finer points of scrotum torture, I would have given a decent review to this film despite my close relationship with my ballsack. But instead of trying to make an entertaining movie, I think the makers of this film were more interested in spewing out one uninterrupted Pro-Life argument after another and squelch any Pro-Choice responses. In that they were successful in making a film where everyone talks as if they were reciting bullet points, too bad they forgot to make it entertaining, scary, or even morally sensible." - Ain't It Cool News^[12]

References

• Text was copied from The Life Zone at Rational Wiki, which is released under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 (Unported) (CC-BY-SA 3.0) license.

Notes and References

1. Web site: Pro-life horror film 'The Life Zone' premieres at Hoboken International Film Festival. Adam Robb. 6 June 2011. Nj.com. 10 February 2022.
2. News: Stern . Marlow . 2011-06-24 . 'The Life Zone' Review: Ken Del Vecchio's Controversial Pro-Life Horror Film . en . The Daily Beast . 2023-08-31.
3. Web site: Filminism: Pro-Life Thriller 'The Life Zone' Began to be Terrible at Conception . https://web.archive.org/web/20230831075912/https://www.mtv.com/news/6k8aex/filminism-the-life-zone . dead . August 31, 2023 . 2023-08-31 . MTV . en.
4. Web site: King . Carol . 2011-07-18 . Creepy Anti-Choice Horror Film Says Women Who Get Abortions Go to Hell . 2023-08-31 . Ms. Magazine . en-US.
5. Jones . Steve . Torture Born: Representing Pregnancy and Abortion in Contemporary Survival-Horror . PhilPapers.
6. Web site: How Insane is the Pro-Life Horror Flick the Life Zone? Let Us Count the Ways | Movieline . 2022-02-09 . 2011-08-20 . https://web.archive.org/web/20110820062317/http://www.movieline.com/2011/06/how-insane-is-the-pro-life-horror-flick-the-life-zone-let-us-count-the-ways.php . dead .
7. Web site: Movie Tickets Movie Times. Fandango.com. 10 February 2022.
8. Web site: News - Entertainment, Music, Movies, Celebrity. https://web.archive.org/web/20200316105831/http://www.mtv.com/news/movies//blog/low-budget-horror-life-zone-pushes-pro-life-message-sorta/. dead. March 16, 2020. Mtv.com. 10 February 2022.
9. Web site: Ken Del Vecchio Movie | The Life Zone | Video. Mediaite.com. 6 June 2011. 10 February 2022.
10. Web site: The First Trailer for The Life Zone Tackles Abortion and Forced Birthing. 28dayslateranalysis.com. 10 February 2022.
11. Web site: Get a Sneak Peek of Episode 1 of BBC America's In the Flesh. Dreadcentral.com. 30 May 2013. 10 February 2022.
12. Web site: AICN HORROR looks at the apocalypse, abortion horror, pirates, pop singers in peril, Bigfoot.... Legacy.aintitcool.com. 10 February 2022.