The most memorable scene of this chilling movie based on Jack Ketchum’s novel is surprisingly non-explicit, save for a few shots of horror. Young Meg (Blythe Auffarth) is tied down by a sadistic woman (Blanche Baker) and a group full of children and tortured in the basement. After allowing one of the boys to rape her, she decides that they should mark her so that everyone will know she’s a whore. She heats up a hairpin over a cigarette lighter and burns words onto her bare chest, spelling out “I FUCK, FUCK ME”. And to finish her off, she takes a blowtorch and burns off her clitoris, too (again, only implied). It’s the dialogue, and the painful reactions of the victim, that give this film its strength.
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