I’m not going to lie about Assassination Nation. The content in this movie is, frankly, uncomfortable to sit through. The movie begins by showing trigger warnings of all of the horrible things that happen over the course movie and tells the audience that this is your chance to leave before it gets started. I thought that the movie was just trying to be shocking for the sake of shock value. I was horribly wrong.
I’ve seen some disturbing movies this year. I thought that Hereditary would be the most disturbing movie of the year, but I was clearly wrong. Assassination Nation is the most nihilistic, hateful, angry, and pissed-off movie of the year for good reason. It has multiple attempted rape scenes. It has scenes of graphic torture. There’s even an attempted lynching of a transwoman and she cries and begs for her life. There is a violent suicide in the first ten minutes of the movie. One of the movie’s clear inspirations is Straw Dogs, going so far as to name-check it before one of its most violent scenes, and that alone should tell you that this movie is 1000% not for everyone.
If you are not comfortable with any of the above, don’t see Assassination Nation. Don’t even think about seeing it. If you think you can stomach it or want to see what the point of it all is, then by all means, read on. Just be aware that I will be discussing spoilers.
Source: Destructoid Review: Assassination Nation