Swords, Shotguns, and Shanks: Girls Night Goes Gangsta in ‘Assassination Nation’

In the new movie Assassination Nation, the small town of Salem, Oregon is brought to it’s knees after a hacker leaks the private text messages, emails, and internet search history of its citizens. High school senior and staunch feminist Lily (Odessa Young) and her trio of equally empowered friends find themselves at the center of the hysteria when a murderous mob falsely accuses Lily as the source of the hack, despite her own leaked texts outing her affair with a married man. While the film is mostly innovative, the dark comedy has a few glaring issues, with one towering above the rest. Assassination Nation is all dark, no comedy. I first heard about Assassination Nation via trailers on Instagram, and while I knew to expect some violence neither I, nor the friend I invited, was ready for what we saw. The movie played up to its hard ‘R’ rating with multiple attempted rape scenes, graphic fight sequences, and gallons upon gallons of blood (one guy even gets his throat slit and bleeds out on top of another person). And despite the rather lengthy list of trigger warnings – some cheeky, some not – displayed at the top of the film, it’s still a lot to experience, especially considering today’s political climate. But maybe that was exactly the point. https://blacknerdproblems.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/09/lily-video.mp4 Lily and Friends Odessa Young’s “Lily” is a witty, sarcastic suburban white teen with a knack for empathizing with others, all of which are characteristics that put…