Movies
Autonomy Pictures Comes Out Playing ‘The Bunny Game’
When we last heard any news about Adam Rehmeier’s The Bunny Game, it had been rejected for home video release by the BBFC who stated, “It is the Board’s carefully considered view that to issue a certificate to this work, even if confined to adults, would be inconsistent with the Board’s Guidelines, would risk potential harm within the terms of the Video Recordings Act, and would accordingly be unacceptable to the public.”
Rehmeier responded to Bloody Disgusting at the time stating: “I think ‘The Bunny Game’ is way less disturbing than ‘Pretty Woman’. Somehow it’s more socially acceptable to glamorize prostitution under the guise of a rags-to-riches fairy tale where Richard Gere falls in love with the whore by the end of the film.” He continues, “Rodleen and I didn’t make ‘The Bunny Game’ to glamorize prostitution. It is far from an erotic film. It is a modern cautionary tale grounded in reality.”
The film was eventually released in the UK and will hit the US in July from new distributor Autonomy, who will make the film their first release. Per Screen Daily, “Derek Curl, David Gregory and Lewis Tice’s new distributor aims to release “uncompromising cinema on a worldwide scale” and will handle four films this year, starting with Adam Rehmeier’s torture porn. “‘The Bunny Game’ is the last word on the torture-porn sub-genre,” Autonomy president Curl said. “I was shocked by its audacity and the raw honesty that it depicted, making me question our collective enjoyment of extreme violence in cinema. At Autonomy Pictures we are not afraid to release such a film, which will undoubtedly inspire heated reaction, because it will allow audiences to make up their own minds.”
Bunny Games follows a female prostitute (Rodleen Getsic) who hitches a lift with a truck driver. The truck driver (Jeff Renfro) kidnaps the woman, restrains and forcibly strips her, and proceeds to physically and sexually abuse and humiliate her.
Julian Richards negotiated the deal on behalf of the filmmakers, ““It’s great to see the launch of the new genre label Autonomy Pictures. And I think that the acquisition of Adam Rehmeier’s uber-controversial The Bunny Game is a bold statement of intent.”
Two things that have proven to be pretty dependable at the box office in recent years are horror movies and Christopher Nolan movies. With Nolan’s The Odyssey absolutely dominating the box office this past weekend, many fans of Nolan’s work have been left hungry for a Nolan-directed horror movie. After all, The Odyssey does whet the appetite for Nolan nightmare fuel.
Christopher Nolan has brushed up against the horror genre in the past with 2002 thriller Insomnia, but does he have any interest in someday making a full-on horror movie?
Nolan tells the Empire Podcast in a new chat, “I’ve always been interested in doing a horror film.”
“But horror is most successful when the conceptual framework of whatever the story is is just so undeniable. I think there are very few really great horror movies,” Nolan continues.
So why hasn’t Christopher Nolan directed a horror movie yet?
He explains to Empire, “I’ve never clicked with a particular idea or concept that worked for me. I love the genre. Of all genres, it’s the most visceral. Where the direct response to the audience is the most important. That is to say, you’re trying to make people literally feel something in their bones about what’s going on on-screen.”
Nolan calls horror “a genre in which experimentation is demanded.” He explains, “I go to see a lot of horror films with my kids these days, and you’ll see things in the first half an hour, 45 minutes of any horror film that you’d never see in another genre. Risks that are taken. Dangerous approaches to things. Admittedly, a lot of movies can’t sustain that to the end. But in the horror genre, that kind of innovation is not just respected – it’s really demanded.”
Christopher Nolan’s The Odyssey is now playing in theaters.
Cillian Murphy as Scarecrow in Christopher Nolan’s ‘The Dark Knight’ (2008)
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