A bleak, surreal adventure.

Author: great_sphinx_42 from The Poppy Field, OZ 69666
7 July 2001

Scaldingly angry and hateful, this is the tale of a trio of young people on a roadtrip to hell. Amy Blue and Jordan White are a teenage couple who have been dating "a really long time"- 3 months. One night Xavier Red jumps in the backseat of Amy's car and leads them on a mad, illicit journey through Greg Arraki's twisted vision of young America. Much has been made of the 'excessive' violence and sex this movie has, but that very excess is part of the point- that pointless excess has led the youth of America down a path where death barely registers, and intimacy doesn't at all. Greg Arraki *likes* these 3 characters. He grieves for the innocence they never even had and the love they try to fashion from the bloody shards of their hearts. And he rages at the widely held and ever-so-patriotic belief that regressing back into intolerance is the answer to America's problems, especially in regards to the young. Maybe he's looking for a third option, one that actually does children good, rather than oppressing them or leaving them to run wild in an irresponsible world.

Rose McGowan once stated that Amy, with her sharp tongue and wounded eyes, is Rose herself at 15. Like Amy, Rose suffered a horrible childhood and because she put her fury and pain into her character, any 15-year-old girl who has suffered at the hands of those who are supposed to protect her can relate. Jordan is just adrift. He finds that Amy is having sex with Xavier, and he dismisses it- a soft, honest "whatever, Amy." Xavier plays demon-imp, tormenting and tempting Amy and Jordan headlong into their bleak, surreal adventure. Ultimately this story is Amy's, and the story is about isolation- hence Amy's whispered, matter-of-fact assertion at the beginning that "there's just no place for us in this world", her attempts to connect with both boys in the only way she knows how, and then her unseeing stare at the end.