Assas­si­na­tion Nation

In some strange attempt to poke fun at the con­cept of basic human decen­cy, Sam Levinson’s Assas­si­na­tion Nation is pref­aced by a list of trig­ger warn­ings. Apa­thet­ic teenag­er Lily (Odessa Young) reels off a list of top­ics which will pop up over the film’s 110-minute run­time, includ­ing trans­pho­bia, attempt­ed rape, gore and ​“frag­ile male egos”. Levin­son makes his stance clear: ​‘This movie isn’t for those who are eas­i­ly offend­ed, LOL!’

Billed as a ​‘satir­i­cal teen thriller’, Levinson’s film focus­es heav­i­ly on the texts, sexts and sala­cious self­ies that – accord­ing to mass media – are inte­gral parts of the teen expe­ri­ence. Black humour hints at Heathers as an inspi­ra­tion, but the aes­thet­ic seems clos­er to Zack Snyder’s mis­guid­ed 2011 thriller Suck­er Punch.

Set in Salem, Mass­a­chu­setts, it sees a group of high school stu­dents – Lily, Sarah (Suki Water­house) Bex (Hari Nef) and Em (Abra) – become the focus of a whole town’s ire fol­low­ing a mass data leak. With secrets exposed through incrim­i­nat­ing texts and pho­tos, a #witch­hunt (because they’re in Salem! Ged­dit?) begins. Forced to defend them­selves against a crowd bay­ing for their blood, the girls raid an arse­nal of guns, don red vinyl rain­coats, and start to wage war.

Any attempt at satiris­ing either Amer­i­can society’s fear of teenagers or inher­ent misog­y­ny is under­mined by how will­ing­ly the film seems to buy into the very thing it’s pur­port­ed­ly riff­ing on. The char­ac­ters are all Millennial/​Gen Z car­i­ca­tures, but Levin­son fails to tell us any­thing we don’t already know about mob men­tal­i­ty or the pit­falls of liv­ing life online.

He seems pure­ly inter­est­ed in dress­ing young women in provoca­tive out­fits, giv­ing them assault rifles and claim­ing this is some­how sub­ver­sive, ren­der­ing Assas­si­na­tion Nation an emp­ty, sali­vat­ing spec­ta­cle with noth­ing new or inter­est­ing to say about the objec­ti­fi­ca­tion and vil­i­fi­ca­tion of young women.