Review of The Bad Batch (2017) by Kirstie S — 09 Jun 2017

I went to see this in Chicago as a pre-release with the director at the Music Box Theater. There are several problems I have with this film, though I loved Ana Lily Amirpour's A Woman Walks Home Alone at Night. I feel like, as a woman, I have been inundated with violent imagery and women in peril scenes for my whole life. This continues to epic proportions in this film and with very little reason for it. It's possible to make a genre film for horror without focusing so heavily on graphic violence towards women alone and be successful on multiple levels (just ask Jordon Peele or watch Get Out) This film fails in this regard. Within ten minutes, the graphic violence against the female lead character was so extreme, I literally started having a panic attack. There is heinous violence committed against women time and time again in this film, even women committing violence towards each other. In one scene, the main character chooses to hold hostage a woman and unborn baby instead of the male ring leader. The imagery is so extreme, in fact, that I haven't been able to sleep a full night since seeing it 3 evenings ago as I am continually assaulted by these damaging images at all hours of the night.

Here's another problem-it is racist as well. So, the "Woman in Peril" bit has been overplayed time and time again. So has the white woman saves black child bit. Much like the burners that the main character runs into in the desert, this is a cliché that does literally nothing to enhance the film.

The last problem is that, unlike in A Woman Walks Home Alone at Night, where there is a strong feminist and overall female presence, the main character here is vapid and even stupid. She doesn't even know where Cuba is and she seems so vacant so that when she goes through a horrible loss, it's hard to even feel empathy for her. There were moments when you think she might be more clever than she looks but it's so inconsistent that it just comes off as really poor writing.

***spoilers***.

The last thing I want to say is this: why would a woman return a child to a cannibal who was literally responsible for the fact that she lost an arm and a leg, which were eaten? Earlier on, she identifies this man as evil and then she falls in love with him? What a load of tripe. If Amirpour was going for the Stockholm Syndrome, well, that's another overplayed cliché and a very damaging one. If she's going for mere survival, she shows a woman with no integrity of character. What, she's now going to join the cannibals too? It's a little unclear but what is clear is that instead of a female heroine, Amirpour gave us senseless violence against women and a woman we couldn't rally behind in any context.

When I asked Amirpour about this in person, she came back with the answer, "Does everything in the world make sense to you?" Of course it doesn't. But, we look to filmakers to inspire us, to show us better worlds, to help us redeem some sense of this world. She could have shown us a woman who was intelligent and insightful, who we felt great empathy for, and who was flawed yet ethical. Instead, she stuck to status quo clichés and perpetuated very damaging stereotypes. I don't need Amirpour to hold a mirror up to the world to show us it doesn't make sense. I can get that on my own.

The real horror of this film isn't the genre. The real horror is that Amirpour clearly has the ability to create films with integrity with her unique female voice and she failed miserably.