There’s no shortage of horror movies about the allure of youth and beauty, perhaps in part due to there being so many different ways to portray it. WhileThe Substanceput the consequences of seeking beauty ontoDemi Moore’scharacter, inLevel 16,directorDanishka Esterhazyfocused on the outside collateral damage.Set in what seems to be an all-girls “school”in a dystopian future, this tense thriller follows Vivien (Katie Douglas), a teenager hoping to be adopted, as she reaches the school’s 16th level; she soon learns that she isn’t as safe as her guardians want her to think.
Not only does the plot of the movie examine the many wayswomen are often exploited by society, butEsterhazy also condemns that exploitation by refusing to do it herself. The details of the crimes committed against the girls are often left off-screen, leaving the characters' dialogue and facial reactions to convey the movie’s horror. And because of the talented cast and director, that’s actually all you need, makingLevel 16a great watch for those without a taste for graphic images.
What Is ‘Level 16’ About?
Level 16begins when a young Vivien and her friend Sophia (Celina Martin) are on level 10 of the Vestalis School. The girls believe that the air outside is poisonous, and their best hope of safety outside the school is to be adopted. The two talk excitedly about this and strive to be virtuous girls, which seems to bethe central goal of the school curriculum. And that’s not the only odd thing about the “school.” There are no windows to be found, the rooms and hallways are made of cold concrete, and there are cameras everywhere. The girls are expected to be obedientto the point where their entire day is controlled, andif they make the slightest mistake, they’re punished. After Vivien helps Sophia at the cost of missing her window to wash her face,she’s forcibly dragged off to the basement for being “unclean.”Whatever methods the school uses for reconditioning aren’t shown right away, but it changes Vivien drastically, and years later she’s extremely dedicated to being the perfect, obedient girl the school expects.
Before ‘The Substance,’ Check Out This ‘Guillermo del Toro’s Cabinet of Curiosities’ Episode
The episode shows how beauty can really get under your skin.
But encountering Sophia again throws a wrench into her plans, asher former friend plants seeds of doubtabout the purpose of the school when they meet again on level 16. The girls are being drugged to sleep, there’s a guard who assaults them while they’re unconscious, and there are no adoptions. Instead,Vestalis is raising and selling the girlslike cattle for their youth and beauty, although Vivien and Sophia don’t discover what that process entails until later. When they do stumble upon the full truth,it’s a horrific and bloody discoverythat leaves them even more traumatized than before. These young girls are being exploited and oppressed in so many different ways thatit’s almost impossible not to sympathize with them, which makes the tension as they try to escape the facility unnoticed even more intense.
‘Level 16’ Successfully Breaks the “Show, Don’t Tell” Rule
On top ofVivien and the other girls being stripped of their autonomy, they also face the threat of sexual assault. Depicting assault is a very tricky issue;Luckiest Girl Alivefaced controversyover it in 2022, with some arguing that such scenes help raise awareness of the harsh reality of assault, and others saying they can re-traumatize real victims.Level 16feels like it believes the latter; despite how closely its plot deals with the violent exploitation of young girls, it’s rarely explicit. The film shows theguard’s hand lingering on Vivien’s leg just long enough for the viewer to see he’s an abuser, but it never feels the need to show a full assault.
This minimalistic portrayal of the violenceagainst the girls even extends to the official methods of those behind the facility. When Vivien breaks the rules as a young girl, we never see what happens to her in the lower levels. What we do see is how she changed from a sweet and caring girl toa hardened and emotionally distant teenager, and we see how intensely she reacts to the idea of other girls even knowing she was accused of being “unclean.” Her terrified behavior is complemented by a brief glimpse of Sophia’s bruised face and fear when she herself is taken downstairs; by showing just a hint of the reality while mainly focusing on how the characters react to it, Esterhazy avoids putting her characters, their actors, and the audience themselves into a traumatic situation while still effectively relaying the consequences.
In short,Level 16proves that it’s not always necessary to film horrific acts if you have actors and dialogue that can get the pain across on their own. This isn’t to say that Esterhazy’s method is better than everyone else’s or that brutality never serves a purpose, but that it’s not required to make an effective thriller. You just have to know what you’re doing, andLevel 16certainly does.
