SuicideGirls Must Die

So these girls thought they were going to a lake house for a calendar shoot. They showed up, they posed, they figured it was going to be the usual deal—look hot, get photographed, move on. Then an axe murderer showed up and started killing everyone.

Except it was all filmed, and mostly planned, and it was actually a horror movie called SuicideGirls Must Die.

Sawada had been making SuicideGirls content forever. Beautiful alternative models in nice locations, getting interviewed afterward, sold on DVD to people with very specific interests. At some point he and Missy Suicide (who actually runs SuicideGirls) decided they wanted to make a real horror film instead. Not a comedy, not a parody—an actual horror film.

The idea they came up with was deliberately fucked up: don’t tell the girls. Tell them it’s a calendar shoot. Let them figure it out as it happens. If some of them catch on too early, they’re the next ones killed. If they stay cool or stay oblivious, they survive. There was technically a script, but nobody really followed it. The whole thing was basically structured around who panicked and who didn’t, who understood what was happening and who just kept playing along.

I can’t quite tell how much of this was real fear and how much was staged. Maybe that’s the whole point—you watch it and you’re suspended between genuine terror and performance, between real and fake, and you can’t quite land on which is which. The SuicideGirls thing has always been built on a kind of controlled transgression anyway. Tattoos, piercings, the we’re doing this whether you’re comfortable with it attitude. Horror and alt culture speak the same language.

It’s not getting a theatrical release in Germany. Might show up on DVD from the States eventually. I’m more curious what comes next from these people. A cooking show? A climate documentary? A Zelda walkthrough? They’ve earned the right to try anything at this point.