Tag: Absurdist Feminist Sci-Fi Horror

My friends and I were bored one night, so we decided to see if there were any new horror movies on Netflix that didn't seem like shit. After wading through the typical crap, we came across a movie titled Tag.

The description for the film told of school girls and alternate realities, so naturally my friends and I were invested. If only we knew what kind of wild ride we were in for.

Tag is a lot of things. It's horror, sci-fi, action, survival, dystopian, slice of life, romance, and feminism all in one eighty-five minute package. All of these sub genres are woven in quite haphazardly within the story. Tag follows a high school student, Mitsuko, escaping horrifying situations such as all her classmates being cut in half by an invisible force. Through this chaos, Mitsuko finds herself switching into different women's bodies, in completely different situations, as her day progresses. All these women are experiencing terrifying events that seem to just be happening.

We were left to wonder what the hell was happening until the last few minutes of the movie, where it's revealed that Mitsuko is a character in a video game called Tag. She was once a person, but her DNA, and those of her friends and the women she inhabited, were all stolen moments before they died. This explains why Mitsuko switches bodies so often, because the player playing the game is switching characters. Mitsuko decides to finally make her own decision by killing herself, thus forcibly ending the game.

Before the ending reveal, I was in a stupor of "what is happening in this movie." But in a good way? In a very weird, very good way. There was a point in the movie where Mitsuko is put in the body of a woman about to get married. All of the people witnessing the wedding are young women who proceed to undress themselves as Mitsuko gets closer and closer to the altar, where her groom to be is a humanoid pig in a tuxedo. It was at this time that I said "I think there's a message here?"

As the film went on, I realized that there are basically no male characters present aside from the pig man and the creator of the video game. This is because the game Tag is a framing device for the male gaze. It's about how women are controlled in not only relationships, but all aspects of life. From as early as high school, women's decisions are seen as lesser or not as important. Any attempts at self preservation or self love are seen as recklessness and "unlady like" behavior. Whereas, if those things are done in the presence and guise of a man, it is expected and complimentary. At first I found the violence against women and only women in the film to be grotesque, but then I realized that duh, that's the point. This whole thing is supposed to be about how gross the male gaze really is, and how dangerous it is to live under it. 

I think Tag is a really brilliant film. Though sometimes it can fall into absurdity, especially with its cheap visual effects, there are some cool messages and imagery in this little known film.