Ramsey's Rambles By Ramsey Campbell THE BUNNY GAME T 2011, Autonomy Pictures, $19.99, 76m 12s, DVD+BR.
THE BUNNY GAME is one of the few films to have been refused a certificate by the British Board of Film Classification in this century. The BBFC explained “The principal fo- cus of THE BUNNY GAME is the unremitting sexual and physical abuse of a helpless woman, as well as the sadistic and sexual pleasure the man derives from this. The emphasis on the woman’s nudity tends to eroticize what is shown, while as- pects of the work such as the lack of explanation of the events depicted, and the stylistic treatment, may encourage some viewers to enjoy and share in the man’s callousness and the pleasure he takes in the woman’s pain and humiliation.” In interviews, the director Adam Rehmeier has said that he was “shocked” by the “outright ban,” which he found “harsh and unnecessary.” “If you go into THE BUNNY GAME looking for entertainment,” he told Luci Herbert at the Ave Noctem web site, “you will be sorely disap- pointed.” It seems reasonable to ask what we should be looking for instead. Without endors- ing censorship, I’m inclined to agree with the BBFC’s description of the film.
The narrative is simple. A Los Angeles prosti- tute (Rodleen Getsic) services a number of cus- tomers (one lengthily fellated in close-up) and is then abducted by a sadist (Jeff Renfro) who incar- cerates her for several days in his truck in the desert. Having cut off her clothes, he terrorizes and brands her, none of which is faked. The trucker’s flashbacks show the branding of another naked victim (Drettie Page) and the suffocation to
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death of a third (Coriander Womack). At the end, the unconscious Getsic is handed over to another man.
On the American DVD/Blu-ray set, Getsic and Rehmeier provide a commentary track, which seems to raise more questions than it answers. Occasionally it refers to elements not signified onscreen; we’re told that Getsic walks along a pavement strewn with human excrement, but that’s not apparent in the filming of the scene, which suggests (as do other references in the commentary) that the creation of the film was to some extent a private experience not neces- sarily intended to be shared with the rest of us. I find this an odd attitude for the makers of the film to have. If members of the audience walk out, the makers take this as a compliment, yet they often describe their work as a horror film— perhaps a new kind? In the best EXORCIST tra- dition, the film is said to have crashed web sites, destroyed a television, and so on. I don’t be- lieve the makers mention torture porn, either the variety that has grown popular since HOSTEL nor the more extreme films available online, which suggests to me that they might not know or understand the genre they’ve espoused. For that matter, Page’s character is credited as “Mar- tyr,” but do the makers know Pascal Laugier’s film? Is the scene in which Renfro imitates his victim’s screams meant to echo THE TEXAS CHAINSAW MASSACRE?
Let me establish that, when I say the film is pornographic, I mean this as a description, not
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