“Gosnell” Is the Movie Too Important to Be Allowed to Succeed

Last week, myself and a couple of friends from my church family decided to have a girl’s day out, by catching an early movie, then lunch, afterwards.

Our goal wasn’t just to see any movie. It was a movie with a purpose.

We drove forty minutes away to a very plush theater, in order to see “Gosnell: The Trial of America’s Biggest Serial Killer.”

“Gosnell” is the independently funded film, starring Dean Cain and directed by Nick Searcy, covering the investigation and trial of Kermit Gosnell, an abortionist who operated the Women’s Medical Society clinic in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

Gosnell’s downfall and well-earned reputation as a heartless butcher was actually stumbled upon, almost accidentally.

Narcotics officers following a lead on illegal prescriptions for Oxycontin went to the clinic in February 2010, search warrants in hand. What they found was a deplorable, filthy house of horrors. It was later reported that state officials had not inspected Gosnell’s facilities since 1993.

It was so much worse than illegal prescriptions.

Gosnell was convicted in 2013 of involuntary manslaughter, involving the death of Karnamaya Mongar, an immigrant women who came to him for an abortion and died shortly after the procedure, due to resulting complications.

He was also convicted of three counts of murder, involving three infants born alive in his clinic.

Gosnell cut the spinal cords of the infants, killing them.

I remember the Gosnell case as it was going on. The big question then, as it is now, was the ethical issue of late-term abortions.

Pennsylvania had a 24-week limit on abortions that Gosnell routinely violated, as well as allowing underaged, untrained staff to administer medication or aid in procedures.

The movie was amazingly well done, and so very important to understand much of what is going on with the abortion industry and the fight for unborn life in this nation.

My friends and I were in agreement that this was a difficult movie to sit through. Some of the imagery and descriptive testimony, regarding what went on in Gosnell’s clinic was like a hard punch in the gut. I can’t imagine anyone emerging from this film without some serious questions about the abortion industry, in general.

And that may be exactly why some areas seem intent on shutting the film down.

The good news is, the movie broke into the box office top ten, earning over $1 million last week, even though it was only playing on 668 screens across the country.

By this past Friday, the movie’s domestic take was $2 million.

So why have almost 200 theaters dropped the movie?

“I can tell you from my experience in 15 years of releasing movies independently, we’re in uncharted territories,” John Sullivan, the film’s producer and marketing director, told the Daily Wire.

“It is an impacted fall, no doubt about it, but the fact that we’ve been dropped from theaters where the movie is the number 6 or number 9 movie is just something you don’t see,” he added.

“It’s hard not to believe it isn’t about the content of the movie.”

Indeed.

The abortion lobby is powerful, backed by well-funded political sources, and there is no way they’re going to sit by and allow this kind of ugly truth to gain traction. Abortion is one of the golden calves of the left, and they will guard it fiercely.

And I’ll admit – I don’t know how the movie industry makes these decisions, but if a movie is doing well, I always thought they expanded the number of screens it plays on, not the other way around.

Sullivan puzzled further over what is happening with the film.

“We’ve been the number 6 in a 15-plex and it gets dropped this week. We’ve been number 9 in a 30-plex and we’re getting dropped this week. There are about 15 theaters like that where typically you would not get dropped,” he stated.

“I do recognize it’s a crowded marketplace — ‘Halloween’ is going to be a huge opening,” he added, referring to the horror movie. “But it’s very odd to me that you’re within the top 10 and you’re getting dropped out of a movie house.”

The “Halloween” sequel that was just released has done quite well and it’s the top movie in the country, right now. That being said, it hasn’t knocked other recent releases from the theaters, so why this particular movie?

That’s not the end of the chicanery going on.

“This has come at an unprecedented level for us,” Sullivan said.

“One report out of Nashville had people being told the movie sold out simply because they didn’t have the staff to cover the theater, and they chose our [movie] to do that to. Why? Too many things have stacked up and it just doesn’t smell right.”

Some moviegoers have reported having their money refunded by an AMC theater and told, flatly, that the theater would not be showing the movie. There was no further explanation.

This was a movie that the abortion industry did not want the public to see, and apparently, they didn’t expect it to have the success that it has had, to date.

So where does that leave the rest of us? What recourse do we have?

I wish I had the perfect answer, but I don’t.

I do know, however, that money still talks.

Check the listings for movies playing in your area, wherever you are, and encourage others to support this movie and the theaters willing to show it.

Gather pro-life supporters, church groups (especially youth groups, giving caution that it is PG-13 and there is some slight language to be aware of), and just go.

Those of us who value life at all stages may not win the battle, this time, but if we can raise awareness and change some hearts, regarding the death cult known as the abortion industry, it is worth the fight.

This movie could very well be the rallying cry we need.