The Bunny Game (2010)

The Bunny Game (2010) 

A prostitute looking for her next meal hitches a ride with a trucker that leaves her praying for her next breath.  (IMDB)

ACTRESSES are asked to do some arduous things in horror films, like running through the woods topless or shrieking until there’s no shriek left.

But Rodleen Getsic — who endured unspeakable acts while shooting the film “The Bunny Game” — is no mere scream queen. Ms. Getsic, 37, plays a prostitute abducted by a crazed truck driver (Jeff Renfro), who drugs and strips her and chains her inside his rig. For the rest of the film’s 76-minute running time he sexually assaults her; slaps and spits on her; shaves her head; and drags her, in a grotesque rabbit-shaped hood that gives the film its title, on a leash through the desert. There are other indignities as well, but in the film’s most brutal scene the actress is actually branded on her back. Shooting digitally in black and white in an aggressively shaky style, the camera unflinchingly captures it all, while an assaultive metal soundtrack underscores Ms. Getsic’s screams.

There’s no digital or prosthetic abracadabra at work in “The Bunny Game,” unlike that in “Hostel,” “Saw” and other so-called torture porn films. Adam Rehmeier, the director, said that other than drug and alcohol use, nothing in the film is simulated, and Ms. Getsic has the branding scars to prove it. In a making-of documentary on the DVD, released in July by Autonomy Pictures, Ms. Getsic says, “Part of my soul did die in making this film.” (NY Times)

The British Board of Film Classification (BBFC) has rejected the sexually violent DVD The Bunny Game.

Date 12/10/2011

The Board considered whether its concerns could be dealt with through cuts.  However, the pervasiveness of the abuse makes it very difficult to deal with The Bunny Game by means of cuts.  If the company would like to attempt to cut this work in order to submit it in a reduced form, they are entitled to do so, but the Board can offer no assurances that such re-editing would be successful. The decision to reject The Bunny Game was taken by the Director, David Cooke and the Presidential Team of Sir Quentin Thomas, Alison Hastings and Gerard Lemos.

The decision means that the film cannot be legally supplied anywhere in the UK.