Reader question - How far is too far when a writer describes a rape scene?

Last week, Rav left this comment on an old entry of mine about The Last House on the Left remake:

I read somewhere that the director of the last house on the left wanted the viewer to feel as violated as Mari and that is why the scene seemed to take FOREVER. (some things cannot be unwatched)

My question is not about the movie per se but a general writing question... in your opinion how far is too far when a writer describes a rape scene?

In my story the main character is explaining her past and a rape that happened to her when she was a teenager. Are there actual laws against writing about minors(shes 14 in the backstory)? I am not doing it for shock value, or for entertainment (because it is far from entertaining) but to explain things the main character does in present day.

I am a big fan of Poppy Z Brite and want to push the "taboo" envelope but I do not want to lose my audience or break any laws.. I want them to feel as violated mentally as my character did physically. if that makes sense. What is your opinion on this?

This is going to be a hot button topic, and I think what you'll have to accept at first is that you WILL offend some people who read the script. Rape is a loaded subject, and I'm sure there are rape scenes that have been both defended as artful by some, and labeled exploitative trash by others.

To my knowledge there isn't any law about writing about minors being raped. The fact that many, many episodes of Law & Order: Special Victims Unit have featured teenage rape victims would seem to back that assumption up. However, I would suggest discretion when writing a scene like that with an underage character. Characters in their late teens will probably be played by someone in their twenties, but if your lead was nine when she was raped, you're really playing with fire. A rape scene with a VERY young character is just begging for walk-outs. Beyond that, do you really want to be responsible for putting a pre-teen actress through the ordeal of performing such a scene?

I'd suggest renting A Time to Kill and taking note of how powerful the rape scene (and the subsequent description of it in closing arguments) is without being graphic at all. We see it in quick flashes from the point of view of the victim. Thus, we get what's going on, without having to be subjected to seeing a little girl actually manhandled by an adult male.

I'm glad you're not doing it for shock value. That's the fastest way to alienate an audience. If it's integral to the character and the story (as in Last House, or The Accused, to cite another example) it's a lot easier to endure that brutality as an audience member.)

Then, in writing the scene don't you DARE attempt to make the scene itself titillating. I've read too many rape scenes where you can practically feel the writer leering as he has his avatar ripping the clothes off of the nubile female lead. Nothing makes me hate a writer faster than the sense that he was typing his rape scene with one hand, if you follow me.

You admit that you want to push the envelope and make the audience feel violated mentally. That seems like a recipe for some negative blowback on that scene. The violence and the violation are bound to make some viewers uncomfortable, and often they'll process that reaction as "I hate this." Is it necessary to go that far? What are you getting out of this that you aren't getting by being suggestive rather than explicit?

If you're doing it JUST to push the envelope, then I have a hard time seeing the distinction between that and doing it for shock value. What's the purpose in violating the audience? Is the rest of the film constructed in a way that makes use of that? In Last House, the ugliness of that scene seems to be there to cement in the audience the desire to see Krug and his crew meet some nasty ends. It's to put us in the shoes of the parents in the film - to make us want vengeance as bad as they do.

When I've had to write a scene like this in my own specs, I've always made myself justify the very existence of that story beat. In every instance, if I determine the act is absolutely integral I've also found that the less graphic the scene is, the better it works for what I'm trying to do. I err on the side of caution - usually making it clear what's about to happen, then drawing out the tension as long as possible before the act. Then I either cut away just before the act, or find some way to pull the audience's focus off of the actual characters. The sounds of the act might be on screen, but the visual is kept just out of camera range. That not only prevents the reader from thinking I found this titilating - but it prevents the more perverted members of the audience from getting any such thrill from it either.

(And believe me, there are sick minds out there. When I posted that Last House entry over a year ago, there was quite a while where I saw Google searches of "Sara Paxton rape scene" were leading people to my blog.)

A Year at the Movies - Part 1

When I get around to seeing more of this year's likely Oscar contenders and big-budget hits, I might compile the obligatory "Best of" list. The simple fact is that there are a lot of movies I haven't seen yet and even more that I made a conscious choice to skip until they were out on DVD.

Occasionally someone will make fun of movie critics because "it's not that hard to sit there and watch movies all day" but they forget that there are a LOT of movies released each week. It is time consuming, particularly when one doesn't have the option to pick and choose the bad ones. I recall getting zero sympathy from my non-Film classmates in college when I complained about having to endure yet another "classic" my professor insisted was educational. Watching movies seems fun until you realize you have to do it three nights a week and are at the mercy of someone else's tastes.

So for these reasons I embark on my Year in Review with the acknowledgement that it is imperfect. I can't see everything and I didn't want to see everything, so if I overlooked your favorite movie, don't throw a fit.

I've decided to write the year up thusly. Movie tickets ain't cheap these days, and in a cost saving move, there were several films I decided to wait for the DVD rather than brave the theatres. Films are listed in order of their theatrical release, with the ones I saw on DVD listed in red text. After each review, I'll render a verdict as to if it was worth either the cost of full admission, or if I had been wise in waiting for DVD. Let's see how good my screening process was.

January

Valkyrie (*** out of four stars) - I'm cheating a bit because this actually came out last December, but I didn't see it until January. Overall I liked it. Bryan Singer's direction was tense, the supporting cast was excellent, and Tom Cruise did a good job. The non-accent didn't bother me, and any film that has you coming out of it mad with frustration at how close someone came to killing Hitler has to be a good one. Verdict: Worth the $12

The Unborn (**1/2) - Without the final twist, this might have had a shot at a solid three stars. The problem is that the ending comes with a reveal that seems to mean that everything that came before it made no sense. I rather liked the hook of the girl being haunted by her unborn twin, and it's rare to see Jewish mysticism used in horror films, so that was an interesting novelty. The cast is pretty solid, particularly Gary Oldman and Idris Elba. Star Odette Yustman is like Megan Fox's good twin - she's less skanky looking and a fair bit better at acting. Verdict: Wish I'd Waited for DVD.

My Bloody Valentine 3-D (**) - I've already covered my biggest issue with the film in this post. Nothing else in the film is exemplary enough to make up for that - save for seeing the 3-D visuals on the big screen. The fact that can't be duplicated as well on DVD is the ONLY reason my verdict is: Worth the $12.

Taken (***1/2) - This was a nice surprise, and the casting of Liam Neeson is the smartest decision the filmmakers of this story of an assassin racing to save his daughter from a human trafficking ring could have made. If you just read the script without knowing who was attached, you might be tempted to dismiss it as a potential direct-to-DVD project for Jean Claude Van Damme. There were at least three or four instances where my jaw was on the floor in disbelief at the turn the movie had just taken (for instance, Neeson coldly shooting his friend's wife.) Best of all, throughout the film it felt like the kind of movie that would have had the guts for Neeson to fail in his rescue attempt, a decision that makes either a happy or an unhappy ending much more powerful. Verdict: Should have seen it in theatres.

February

Push (**) - My displeasure might be colored by the fact that this script followed me around like a homeless puppy, as I had to read it for several different bosses over the years. Bored me to death, and it was pretty much miscast across the board. Verdict: Money well saved.

Friday the 13th (*) - about 22 minutes into this, I asked myself, "What am I doing here? Why did I think this would be any different from the other films?" Aside from a marginally more talented cast, I was right. Verdict: Wish I'd waited for DVD.

Fanboys (**1/2) - I'm kind of burned out on the whole mocking of Star Trek and Star Wars fans. It was novel when Kevin Smith did it, but the joke's been told and retold a lot. This film isn't immune to that, and the whole cancer subplot is rather badly executed. The main cast is decent, though, and the film is largely redeemed by the cameos - particularly Danny McBride's - and the visual appeal of Kristin Bell in a Slave Leia outfit. Still, I didn't miss anything by waiting a few months for the DVD. Verdict: Money well saved.

March

Watchmen (***) - I probably need to see this again to put it in it's proper context. It's not without a few pacing problems, but I think there are some really stunning visuals and great shot compositions. On top of that, Jackie Earle Haley's Rorschach steals the movie and Malin Ackerman is appealing when she's not called upon to act. The downside: Matthew Goode does everything he can to sink the movie with his valim-inspired performance as Adrian Veidt. Overall I think there's more good than bad here. Verdict: Worth the $12.

The Last House on the Left (***) - I'm still conflicted about this one, as my original review indicates. I'm sort of glad that I got to experience this in the comfort of my own home and not in a theatre full of ignorant moviegoers heckling and yelling at the screen. Verdict: Glad I waited for DVD.

I Love You, Man (***1/2) - The best Judd Apatow movie that Apatow never touched. This bromance comedy clearly has the DNA of Apatow's better movies beyond featuring his regular players Paul Rudd and Jason Segal. Rudd plays a man who's never had a male best friends and finds one for the first time in Segal. Three-dimensional characterization is a major asset to a premise that could have easily been tired and hackneyed. Best of all, the script keeps the Rudd/Segal dynamic as its main focus and avoids the Apatow tendency to let the secondary characters gobble up too much screentime. Apatow's supporting players are usually reliable for laughs and good characterization, but the reason his films always feel about 15 minutes too long is because the director isn't merciless enough to cut funny bits in service of keeping the script focused. I Love You, Man uses some supporting characters to great effect - particularly Jon Favreau, Jamie Pressley and Lou Ferrigno (!) - but director John Hamburg (who shares a writing credit with Larry Levin) keeps things moving in one of the best comedies of the year. Verdict: Worth the $12

Monsters vs. Aliens (***) - A fun romp. Kids will be entertained and even if Dreamworks Animation will never hold a candle to Pixar's in terms of story, I enjoyed it. Verdict: Worth the $12.

April

Adventureland (***) - A decent indie comedy, and one that convinced me that Kristen Stewart actually could act when she isn't bored stiff by the script (see: Twilight). Jesse Eisenberg comes off as a bit of a poor man's Michael Cera at times, but still manages to have fun in the role. Bill Hader and Ryan Reynolds also get in a few good moments. Still, it's probably a better viewing experience at home rather than in the theatre. Verdict: Wish I'd waited for DVD.

Observe and Report (1/2 star) - I know this film has it's defenders. I am not one of them. The kindest thing I can say is that I respect Seth Rogan for trying something different. Halfway through I considered turning off the DVD. 45 minutes later, I wished I had. Verdict: Money well saved, time badly wasted.

17 Again (***) - You won't find much original in this story that can basically be called Big-in-reverse. I also can't find much that I hated, either. The cast has a ball with their roles and the story's well-paced and structured. Maybe I'd have felt differently had I paid full price for it, but it's totally watchable as a Netflix pick. Verdict: We'll go with "Money well Saved."


May

Wolverine (no stars) - In any other year, this would have been my pick for Worst Film of the Year. Alas, I underestimated certain other filmmakers. So bad it makes X-Men 3 look like X2. Anyone involved in any creative decisions on this film should have their filmmaking licenses revoked. Verdict: Glad I waited for DVD.

Ghosts of Girlfriends Past (***) - This is little more than a Scrooge rip-off with a womanizer (Matthew McConaughey) learning the error of his ways just in time to win back his childhood sweetheart (Jennifer Garner). Part of me thinks the concept is clever and another part wants to say that the lead's transformation isn't believable. It kept me entertained, so I'll be kind to it. Verdict: Glad I waited for DVD.

Star Trek (***1/2) - My favorite film of the year. J.J. Abrams and his team found a way to give Kirk and company an origin story that leaves their futures wide open without disrespecting everything that came before it. They pulled off the very difficult task of entertaining Trekkies and people who never watched Star Trek. If the opening sequence doesn't tug on your heart strings, you have no heart, and that's just the first of the surprises here. The visual effects are fantastic, but they're always in service to the story and the casting is pitch-perfect, from the bridge crew on down to Bruce Greenwood's Captain Pike and Eric Bana's Nero. Verdict: So good I paid to see it twice.

Up (***1/2) - Remember what I said about Trek's opening tugging on the heart? Up sees that and raises it a few. A while back I singled out the early montage as a masterful example of non-verbal exposition, and I think that bears repeating. This is just a really beautiful movie, and my only issue with it might be that I felt the villain was one of Pixar's weaker ones. On the other hand, without him, we'd never have the talking dogs so that's almost a fair trade. Verdict: Worth the $12.

Come back tomorrow for the rest of the year!

Brutallity and rape in The Last House on the Left

24 hours after watching the remake of The Last House on the Left I was still trying to figure out how I felt about it. I'd skipped this one in theatres, but since thrillers and horror movies make up a lot of what I read for work, I try to stay on top of the big movies in that genre. A few years ago, I saw Wes Craven's original version of the film and was left with similarly mixed feelings. The movie was powerful on a gut level in many ways and the raw aesthetic only added to that. On the other hand, there were moments that seemed sadistic merely for its own sake and some oddly placed comic relief.

For those who don't know, the premise is that two teenage girls are brutally attacked after going to a motel room to hang out with a teenage boy. The boy's father, uncle and the father's girlfriend are none too happy about this when they return, as they are all wanted for the murder of two cops while helping the father, Krug, escape from the back of a police car. The girl's put up a fight, but one is killed after attempting to escape and her friend, Mari, is very brutally raped by Krug. She manages to make a run for it and tries to swin out via a nearby lake, only to be shot by Krug and left for dead in the water.

But when Krug and his crew find themselves without transportation, guess where they inadvertently take refuge? Mari's parent's home, with none of the parties initially aware of the connection. When the parents do find out, it's after they've put the foursome in the guesthouse and a storm has knocked out their phones. On top of that, they have no car, as Mari took the only one at the house. They're stuck on their own, with the fear that Krug's gang will figure out who they are.

It could be called a morality play, and a study in how far someone would go to take revenge on people who brutalized someone they loved. I'm fond of these sorts of premises - where an ordinary person is thrown into an extreme situation and how they deal with it becomes a true test of character. Hitchcock was one of the great masters of this, with films like North by Northwest.

It's a great question: if someone who raped and beat up your daughter was in your guest cottage and calling the police wasn't an option - what would you do? Do you hide and gamble that they don't figure out who you are? Do you consider that they might kill you even without knowing who you are? Do you take action out of self-defense? Or do you seize the opportunity for brutal revenge - eye for an eye?

How many times have the survivors of brutal crimes (or their families) said, "Just give me five minutes alone with the SOB responsible." Well, these characters have all night - what do you think they do?

But it wasn't those hard questions that troubled me - it was the fact that after so many years of horror films being an exercise in exploitative violence, Last House essentially hinges on a brutal, disturbing rape. It's not graphic in the sense that any nudity is shown, but the camera angles certainly are suggestive and Sara Paxton gives a more than convincing performance during the brutal scene.

The filmmakers understandably had a bit of a no-win situation here. If they didn't show the rape, or sanitized it, it might undercut just how vicious Krug and his men are supposed to be. It might compromise how much the audience identifies with the parents in the final act. After we bear witness to what Krug does to Mari, we want him dead. D-E-A-D. There's no denying there's a legitimate case to be made for provoking that reaction.

But the other side of it is that it's really hard to sit through the rape scene and regard it as entertainment. I can easily see some viewers - especially parents - transferring some of their disgust for Krug onto the filmmakers themselves. And that's such a gut level reaction that there's no debating the point with people who have it.

So this is the risk a writer takes should they put a graphic rape scene in their script. Sexual violence is bound to be more controversial than straight-up murder or assault. You want proof? Most of us wouldn't bat an eye at James Bond executing a female assassin in cold blood. They might even cheer. Can you imagine that reaction if instead of shooting her, he raped her?

And right about now, I'm guessing several of you are ticked at me for putting that image in your head.

Some of the worst scenes I have ever read were rape scenes; brutal, nasty acts of sexual violence that were ostensibly in the script to tell us what horrible people the villains were. Most of the time, they read like the writer's were getting their rocks off, creating some sort of demented fantasy. One particular scene was so bad that I have refused to read subsequent drafts of that screenplay when offered and the writer in question is the only writer who I refuse to read on principle. And I am NOT a squeamish person.

Ultimately, the rest of The Last House on the Left was so well-produced and the performances were so solid that I decided to give the movie the benefit of the doubt. It seems that they handled a difficult scene as best they could given the requirements of the plot. I read an interview with director Dennis Iliadis where he said he didn't want to cast an overtly sexy young starlet as Mari because he didn't want the rape scene to be enjoyable for the audience at all. I think that was a wise choice. Had he cast Megan Fox in the role, and shot it so she was more exposed, I can see all the hype for the movie boiling down to "See Megan Fox naked!"

Oh, darn. I just put the words "Megan Fox Naked" in a row. I can only imagine that'll really mislead a lot of Google searches. I just feel terrible that people looking for Megan Fox naked will be misdirected here because I happened to type Megan Fox naked. I hope they don't feel ripped off when they don't find Megan Fox naked here, because there is no naked Megan Fox here.

Anyway, as I said, the cast is uniformly excellent. Tony Goldwyn and Monica Potter do solid work as the parents, Riki Lindhome is quite creepy as Krug's girlfriend, while Aaron Paul is suitably scuzzy as Krug's brother. But the real reason to see The Last House on the Left is for Garret Dillahunt's performance as Krug, one of the nastiest villains put on screen in some time. You might not know his name, but you'll likely recognize Dillahunt as Russian gangster Roman on Life, the Cromartie/John Henry terminator on The Sarah Conner Chronicles, or as Tommy Lee Jones' deputy in No Country For Old Men. Dillahunt has an incredible range, and he puts it to use here - he's menacing without resorting to the sorts of shouting and over-the-top hysterics that most horror villains thrive on. He's able to turn on the charm when dealing with the parents, even as he laces his words in ways to remind his crew who's in charge. The wrong actor in this role would have destroyed this movie, no question.

However, I would be remiss if I didn't point out how wrong the final scene of the movie felt. Goldwyn has Krug at his mercy after knocking him out and he needs to rush his family to the hospital via boat. Obviously leaving Krug there to wake up and escape isn't an option - he's not going to give the guy who raped his little girl and attacked his family a pass. So he paralyzes Krug from the neck down and places his head in a microwave. After waiting for Krug to wake up and appreciate his fate, the father activates the appliance and exits, leaving Krug screaming as his head explodes.

Much like how I criticized Rachel Nichols' character in P2 killing her captor in cold blood, I had some problems with this last scene. It's a little too calculated for my tastes. It doesn't feel like something the father would do. I believe he'd beat Krug to death with his bare hands. I believe he'd slash his throat. I believe he'd shoot him several times and leave him to bleed to death. I don't doubt he wants to kill Krug and that he wants to make it painful.

But you're telling me that with time being of the essence, he's going to take the time to paralyze Krug, then sit around and wait for him to wake up, just so he can cackle at him and leave him in a semi-creative death trap? I don't quite buy it, and the exploitative image of Krug's head exploding is exactly the wrong note to end this movie on. That final scene forms our impressions as we exit the theatre or turn off our DVD. It's gore for gore's sake, and the problem is that it provokes one to revisit the rape scene in that context. For me, the exploitative violence here cheapens the other violence by association.

Does anyone out there have any thoughts on this topic? I'd love to know if others had the same issue as I did, or if they were less forgiving of the rape scene. Please, comment away.