If there were ever a time where an idiotic “trigger warning” was actually needed, this would be it. On Thursday, Josh Dickey, a film writer at Mashable, gave the world an exclusive behind-the-scenes account of the much-ballyhooed Sundance Film Festival. Dickey’s bizarre and frightening “tale of depravity” included two occasions of almost full-on suffocation, sucking on a tampon—which he pulled out of girls, ya know—and hiding a piece of paper in his mouth from “him.” If “disturbing” was what the freaks over at Sundance were going for, they nailed it.
The film writer recounts being asked to attend an “exclusive” “Blackout” and quickly accepting without a second thought or a simple “Will this leave me traumatized?” question. When he arrived, he was led into a house where “the windows were covered in black trash bags, the front entrance was blocked by a security guard and the people there to receive me on the alternate side entrance seemed rather … grim.”
Before the naïve writer was grabbed by a “goon squad” of men who threw a plastic bag over his head—almost suffocating him—he was told that if he, at any point, wanted the “experience to end,” the safe word was, fittingly, “safety.”
Before my eyes adjusted, an intensely gruff young guy drilled a flashlight directly in my pupils and started barking instructions and questions. “If at any time you want this experience to end, you must say the word ‘Safety,’” he said. “Do you understand? SAY IT.”
“A group of men grabbed me from behind, threw a plastic bag over my head, pulled it tight enough against my face so that I couldn’t inhale, yanked me to the floor and ordered me to crawl into a makeshift tunnel,” writes Dickey.
He was then told to “find the woman with the hood,” and “pull it off” of her. Dickey followed the orders verbatim and was pulled into a bathroom where the now-hoodless women asked the writer to do the unthinkable. In full commitment-mode, the woman took off her underwear and demanded that he “pull the string” to effectively remover her tampon. Dickey complied.
She ordered me to sit on the toilet, then pulled down her underwear and told me to “grab the string and pull it out.”
Up until this point I’d kept my hands as much to my sides as possible — the last thing I wanted was any more trouble than I was already clearly in. But no amount of affected decorum will ever prepare you for those particular instructions.
“Uhhhmmm … “
“PULL IT OUT PULL IT OUT NOW! HE’S COMING!”
Well, I certainly didn’t want “him” to get here and find unfinished business. She guided my hand to the string, and I gently tugged. I couldn’t see very well in the semi-dark, so I’m hopeful this was a sleight-of-hand, but — whatever I was pulling down upon was not easily emerging from wherever it really … was.
“PULL HARDER!”
When whatever was attached to the string finally broke free I could feel a trickle of wetness on my hand.
And just when you think things couldn’t get worse, Dickey was told to “suck on it.” Spoiler Alert: Dickey didn’t start screaming “SAFETY!” and blow that freak-fest; he complied, again. Gross.
She ordered me to stand, lifted a soggily engorged clump of cotton up to my face and said, rather come-hitherly, “Now … suck on it.”
After receiving pushback from Dickey, and not hearing the safe word that she reminds him of, the naked woman screams, “SUCK ON IT!”
Dickey writes that “It tasted sweet and lemony.” (Feel free to think up exactly how that happened on your own.)
After being suddenly recaptured by the “goon squad,” post-tampon-sucking incident, Dickey was instructed to hide a piece of paper in his mouth and told not to let “him” find it. Who is “him”? You’ll see, sort of.
Dickey was then thrown into the Men’s restroom, this time where a lovely young woman was “gnashing her teeth” (because apparently Dickey was in Hell now) and screaming repeatedly: “WHY DID YOU DO THIS TO ME?!” Naturally, she then stripped buck-naked and climbed on top of Dickey.
For good measure, the “goon squad” interrupted and suffocated Dickey one last time.
“Him” finally shows up and searched for the paper Dickey was instructed to hide in his mouth—thank God, “him” doesn’t find it.
He didn’t find it — I kept swirling it where his finger wasn’t — and suddenly, I was being pushed, if not lifted and carried, very swiftly in one direction, as if I were about to be launched.
Dickey finally found himself outside of the “Blackout” in Park City. Safe.
Just another day at Sundance, I guess…
Here’s a “Blackout” preview.