Remember the horror of the teenaged boys in “Lord of the Flies” descending into savagery despite their efforts at self-governance as their only hope for survival?
Here’s the story from a female perspective with an all-female cast of characters. Eight teen girls are trapped in what might be a dank cluster of college dorm rooms in a building buried by an earthquake. They face the prospect of banding together as their only chance of surviving or succumbing to individual wills to power and destructive mind-games.
Critical reviews of this dark and grueling low-budget art-house movie were wildly split, perhaps not surprisingly mostly in accordance with the gender of the viewer.
The psychological tortures that the clashing queen bees inflict on non-submitting targets, the torment of self-doubt suffusing identities in formation, and the rival clique initiations, strategies and formations are baffling and seemingly nonsensical to males.
Females find them to be simply exaggerated but eminently relatable to their experiences in their teen years. For a most satisfactory viewing result, males with inquiring minds are advised to see this movie with a trusted female “translator.”