Run! Bitch Run!

I kid you not. This is a title of an action movie newly available to watch at Netflix.com. Run! Bitch Run!. The title and rape-driven plot of this "exploitation flick" sucked me back to one of my most traumatizing movie experiences.

Somewhere between the age of five and ten years old, I played at our classy neighbors' house where Hustler magazines were piled high next to the toilet. And they put on a fun little movie titled I Spit On Your Grave. In the era of Friday the Thirteenth and Chainsaw Massacre, this type of horror film was standard viewing for the Clarkson family. But for this Quaker kid, watching the longest gang rape in film history gave me the shakes.

I broke down and telephoned my mother to pick us up. Or perhaps one of my siblings called. I clearly remember my fear -- wanting out of that house. (Years later I learned the rest of the movie focused on vengeance.) I left as she was dragging her beaten body through a forest, only to be found by the rapists again.

When I saw the title Run! Bitch Run!, I snorted with dry amusement -- imagining the director was a total asshole or like over-the-top humor. Then the plot summary mentioned rape, and I stopped laughing.

Because it's not funny. Rape isn't funny. Me watching that shit wasn't funny.

The first ten minutes of Psycho -- I saw it the age of nine at my aunt's house -- made me scared to shower for years!

So the moral is -- don't show horrifying films to kids!!! (And thoroughly inspect any house they play in.)