MY FIRST FRANCHISE REVIEW

I thought I would try my hand at reviewing a popular franchise, that has been hitting our screens recently.

This offering that I am reviewing, is the most recent in a long line of installments. Albeit a young franchise, it has already spawned many spinoffs, to admittedly mixed reviews, despite a seemingly infinite budget.

The franchise that I shall be commenting on this week, is: THE MASSACRE FRANCHISE.

It began just over a year ago, with the surprising, THE FLOUR MASSACRE, followed immediately by, THE TENT MASSACRE, THE BAKERY MASSACRE, THE PRAYER MASSACRE, THE HOSPITAL MASSACRE, and not forgetting last summer’s blockbusters: THE SCHOOL MASSACRES.

This brings us up to last week, when the newest addition, THE MEDICS MASSACRE, hit our screens, and I shall review it to the best of my abilities.

The plot is deceptively simple, but classic in nature, for the franchise’s producers:

We open on a desperate scene of nineteen paramedics and rescue workers, who find themselves in a war zone trying to maneuver their ambulances through a non-combat zone, their intention to save as many innocent civilians as possible.

Despite the vehicles displaying their aid worker insignia and their obvious status as ambulances, (who are protected by international humanitarian law), they are targeted by occupying forces and fired upon. The vehicles are riddled with bullets, killing all but one occupant, who finds himself being dragged from the vehicle, stripped down to his underwear, bound, beaten, interrogated and tortured, as he witnesses more aid workers arriving on the scene, in ambulances and fire trucks who were, in turn rained down upon by another hail of bullets, killing all within each vehicle.

The stripped and tortured man, then watches as bulldozers are brought in to bury the bodies and vehicles of the victims in the sand, effectively making any evidence of wrongdoing disappear.

Pretty normal movie plot, so far.

But this is where it gets interesting and the franchise has identified a magic ingredient, a plot twist that we as an audience, are completely unprepared for.

The viewer naturally believes, that after this unlawful execution of medics and aid workers, in an already tense and genocidal setting, that these perpetrators would be brought to justice, that this would incite swift retribution from governments of “civilized” countries around the world, with condemnations and sanctions. As the story unfolds, however, we begin to realize that there are no governments calling ‘foul play’, no repercussions; no response.

This massive plot twist leaves the audience completely discombobulated, wondering if this is a grim and extreme view of a dystopian, future world, or a dark farcical comedy.

Surely, the arc of the story must come to a point where the villains are brought to justice, a hero steps in, because it’s the right thing to do. Is the audience to be robbed of a finale, where justice prevails?

We have all seen the movies where the heroes are a small band of rebels, like Luke Skywalker and Han Solo, in STAR WARS. Neo and Morpheus, in THE MATRIX, both groups fighting against forces of absolute oppression. We have all identified with these rebels, believing that even a small candle can fight the darkness of evil and injustice.

But the MASSACRE franchise, owes its surprising success to the fact that in real life, we do not subscribe to the idea of rebels, fighting the machine, and winning. The rebels in this franchise are not the “heroes”. They are labeled as “terrorists”. Heck, even the women and children are approved targets as potential uprisers, and dealt with accordingly, ending up as mutilated bodies, shredded and scattered across blood-soaked school playgrounds.

Nor, as we would have seen in franchises of the past, are the oppressors labeled as “villains”. In fact, the governments around the world, instead of sanctioning them, willingly feed their genocidal objective with bigger and better weapons, and even go so far as to express sympathy and support for the oppressor’s right to defend themselves against innocent civilians, their right to blow up hospitals, schools and tented displacement areas; even cutting off food, electricity, water and aid for months on end.

Maybe this movie is pure surrealism, because one is left, unsure of which way is up and which is down, what is right and what is wrong? We find ourselves spinning off axis as we start to process the story we just witnessed. Has everything that we were brought up to believe about justice, good and evil, actually, bullshit.

Personally, I don’t understand anything anymore.

Luckily, we don’t need to spend too much time trying to comprehend the madness of this franchise, as the spring and summer is already shaping up to give us some more blockbusters to occupy our attention. We can keep ourselves busy, flicking through the endless supply of stories competing for our distracted focus.

“THE TARIFF WARS”

“THE SPREAD OF FEAR”

“BIG OIL VERSUS THE INDIGENOUS”

“THE GREAT ROLLBACK OF ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION”

“LAND GRAB”

“THE GREAT RECESSION”

“NO RIGHT TO PEACEFUL PROTEST”

“THE SHUTDOWN OF FREE SPEECH”

“THE GREAT DICTATORSHIP”

“THE THIRD TERM PRESIDENT”

And finally,

“TRUMP, ENDGAME.”

There is little doubt, that the studio behind the MASSACRE franchise, will offer up many more spin offs, as long as the external funding from our governments continues, and there are still some remaining children, mothers, aid workers, doctors, and journalists to massacre. Either way, our viewing future is full.

I should end my review with a trigger warning, and a caution for all viewers, regarding the ‘gore’ factor of the series.

I have never seen such horrifically gruesome images on the screen before. The horror movies of the 80’s and 90's, with all their special effects, pale in comparison to the cinema verité of this particular milieu of storytelling.

A body of a two-year-old with no head, random arms, legs and shredded torsos, rolling around in bloodied sheets, as they are carried through a bombed building. The image is almost impossible to fathom, and the viewer is forgiven for momentarily believing that this is actually happening, before common sense steps in, and the viewer reminds themselves, that nothing like this would ever be allowed to happen in today’s world. Not in our time. Never like this. Never again. Not with our modern understanding of human rights and international law.

……………………………….

You must forgive me for framing what I see in the world in this rather crude ‘movie review’ format. I don’t know how else to comment anymore about what is happening in Gaza. The images get worse and worse. The bombs get heavier and more powerful. The children’s faces, bloodied, ashen and traumatized, haunt me every day, especially as I know that there is no sign of help.

This story has no happy ending. Even if it stopped right now, hundreds of thousands of lives have been torn limb from limb. Any chance of peace, is reserved solely for those who have died. The real hell awaits those who survived.

I watch a video of a child sitting on a hospital table, whose whole family has been killed, as he stares at the wall, wide-eyed, gently rocking, the poisonous trauma searing into his veins, into the very core of his soul, never to be removed, never to be cured.

Five children are brought in to a hospital and stacked side by side on a makeshift hospital surface. The children are covered in ash and blood, but conscious, and in shock. The last child is laid in between them, half it’s scalp hanging off, blood pouring. Two boys sit up, scared to be next to the unconscious bleeding boy, but another child, no older than three, cannot sit up, and lies motionless, staring at the bleeding, shredded head of the child, no more than eight inches away from his face. The child is in shock, confused and trying to interpret what is happening.

How can we let this happen? How deluded are we as humans to believe that our leaders and our countries are inherently good. We are lost. Humanity has been forsaken and there doesn’t seem to be a hero in sight.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/mar/31/israel-killed-15-palestinian-paramedics-and-rescue-workers-one-by-one-says-un