Suicide Girls Must Die!: An Analysis

Practically every day I’m adding something new and interesting to my Netflix queue that I am introduced to as a recommendation, hear about on the internet somewhere, or see scrawled on the bathroom wall of a truck stop in Tulsa.  The kicker is that I rarely check what is actually next in line to be sent to me, which means that every few days, I get surprised with what is inside that fancy little red envelope that arrived at my door.  To my mild amusement and total curiosity, I opened up the envelope to see Suicide Girls Must Die!, which is being touted as the first “reality” horror film.  That is probably why it made its way to my Netflix queue, it totally has nothing to do with the fact that it has attractive “alt” models gallivanting around and shooting a nude calendar for one of the biggest adult sites on the net.  Yeah, I mean, I barely know what the internet is… I can’t even read….

STENOGRAPHER NOTE: He’s right, he is completely illiterate.

A quick dash over to imdb.com during the opening credits shows that the viewers have spoken, and given the film a whopping 3.4 out of 10 as a rating (only 124 votes though).  This shocked me a little bit considering that the people who are going to watch this film are already well aware that they are going to see two very distinct things.  They know that there will definitely be nudity, as well as a reality show feel and look to the project.  You see, the whole story is being presented to us as a reality horror film, which sounds intriguing (that’s why I’m watching this, totally for science) [STENOGRAPHER’S NOTE: Poppascotch is making a dirty gesture involving various pieces of furniture in the room] enough for me to look into.  Little did I know however that the film would turn into an hour and forty minute long episode of Scare Tactics.

12 Suicide Girls are under the impression as they get shipped to a remote cabin in Maine that they are getting filmed for a future Suicide Girls video while also shooting a sexy calendar.  So right off of the bat you have 12 or 13 (the number of girls in on the joke is never given) girls who have no idea that they are going to be participants in the most elaborate and horrifying practical jokes that has even been captured on film. 

You see, the allure of shows like Scare Tactics, or even short video clips of practical jokes on youtube is that even thought the situations may be horrifying and cause the subjects blood pressure to rise exponentially, the fact of the matter is that the ordeal is taking place over a short period of time.  Say for example only a few hours at the most.  The film Suicide Girls Must Die! Is no way f**ks around with this concept and in all honesty takes it a bit far.  They put their girls up to the grueling challenge of having to internally deal with missing people for multiple days.  Really, take some time to process that.  You see, as the days go on and more and more people are being shot for the calendar, more girls start to disappear mysteriously while the girl in charge of keeping everything together doesn’t care that they’re gone.

That in and of itself is a really interesting part to the film that I’m glad was included.  Obviously some people participating had to be in on the joke, so the leader of the group, Sawa Suicide (I think that’s her name, they all have the same last name and like 8 of them look pretty much the same) constantly acts like the biggest jerk in the world saying that the girls probably just wondered off because they all had attitudes.  I won’t spoil any of the events for you because truth be told the people behind the scenes pulling all of the strings actually did a pretty good job at setting up a situation where help was not available to these girls at all.  However, this was about it for the horror elements of the story unfortunately.

There were a couple intercut scenes of girls being hacked up or getting hanged in trees, but they were all brief and really hurt the movie by taking you completely out of the story since everyone knows this thing is staged.  It’s as if they were thrown in there after filming when it was determined that the movie itself was very cyclical and redundant It quickly becomes agitating when the story seems to be running around in circles.  Something scary happens, then the girls yell at each other, something else scary happens, then the girls yell at each other, and so on and so on.

The beauty of a show like Scare Tactics is that a person is taken out of their world for a short period of time and given some good reasons to be scared and it’s funny to see their reaction.  The person may be a little embarrassed, but after having the relief of not dying today, they will get over it all pretty quickly.  However, in Suicide Girls Must Die, the charade goes on for five days. FIVE DAYS!  By the time the whole thing is over, the poor remaining girl has been completely put through the ringer of emotional pain and anguish for five whole days.  I mean we’re talking about someone’s physical well being here.  Think sleep deprivation, rampant alcoholism (almost every girl here drinks, which is awesome), and not to mention stress related illnesses and a lot of anxiety.  I mean sure the girls are young and their bodies can take it just fine, but still, five days of this?

By the end of it, I was very well aware that I was no longer watching a horror film.  It was marketed towards horror fans for the suicide girl’s relation to the alt horror community and well as men who like seeing said girls naked.  [STENOGRAPHER’S NOTE: Poppascotch is now appearing to simulate sex with a caged bird, no idea why] The problem is that the movie played more like a reality show, and I shouldn’t have to explain to you the horror communities’ low threshold for pop culture garbage.  So was the movie good?  No it wasn’t, but if you are one of the few people that are into the doldrums of reality shows (think Jersey Shore, the Hills, you know what, any show on MTV in the past 15 years or so) and also happen to like violent horror films as well as young chicks naked (like, a lot of naked), then this is the movie for you.  For the other 99% of horror fans, it’s isn’t worth the low score of 3.4 because honestly, they were experimenting with a format that no one had utilized like this before and I do applaud them for that, but it just doesn’t have a very wide audience.