Purity has a price.
Level 16 is a 2018 Science Fiction Thriller film directed by Canadian director Danishka Esterhazy.
The story follows Vivien (Katie Douglas) and Sophia (Celina Martin), two teenagers living at Vestalis Academy, an ultra strict, all-girls boarding school that shapes its students into "clean girls". Under the guidance of the mysterious Miss Brixil (Sara Canning), the girls are taught to be pure, submissive, and obedient for the rich families that will one day adopt them. However, when Sophia begins to suspect that the school is hiding some secrets, she and Vivien must work together to uncover the truth behind their so-called "home".
Tropes present in this work:
- Affably Evil: Dr. Miro is genuinely kind to Vivien, and it was his idea to give the girls a "moving picture day" (movie day) every week. This does not stop him from being a toxic gaslighter and child mutilator who sees Vivien as his greatest asset.
- Arc Words: "Clean". The girls are expected to uphold both their physical cleanliness and their purity. If anyone steps out of line, or if they commit a vice, they are considered "unclean" and must be corrected.
- Artistic License – Medicine: Skin transplants are used in cases of trauma to the skin, such as burns or pressure sores. Wrinkles and other signs of aging are not trauma. And while skin from a cadaver can be transplanted to a living person, it can only be used temporarily.
- The Atoner: Sophia. She's still ashamed of turning her back on Vivien after her mishap gets the girl punished, and it only worsens when she learns that Vivien still hasn't forgiven her. In the final act, when the two have the option to escape together, Sophia refuses to leave the others behind because she doesn't want to betray anyone again.
- Beware the Quiet Ones: Sophia may be soft spoken, but when it comes to protecting her friends, she's more than willing fight off an adult guard twice her size and win.
- Big Bad Duumvirate: Miss Brixil, the strict headmistress who raises the girls at Vestalis, and Dr. Miro, the one who skins the girls for a rejuvenation clinic.
- Big "NO!": Vivien lets one out when she finally learns the school's horrifying secret.
- Boarding School of Horrors:
- On the surface, Vestalis Academy is an extremely strict institution where taking too long to get ready in the morning can get you punished. Behind the scenes, it's a farm where young girls are sold and skinned for transplants.
- As expected, the "education" in the school is very poor, consisting of lessons that merely push Vestalis' agenda (women must embrace feminine virtues like obedience and purity, and avoid "vices" like rebellion and negative emotions). Tellingly, none of the girls know how to read, and they are completely unaware of things like race (Ava makes fun of the Asian Sophia because she "squints"; Vivien, and perhaps Sophia herself, think it's because she has bad eyesight).
- Broken Bird: Vivien. Getting punished as a child (for reasons she blames Sophia for) left her bitter, cold, and more obedient to the rules than ever.
- Chekhov's Gun: The scalpel that Viven swipes from Miro's operating room. At the end, she uses it to mutilate her own face, rendering it unusable for the transplants.
- Deadly Doctor: Dr. Miro, the facility doctor whose ministrations to the girls is to prepare them to have their skin removed and transplanted to buyers at his rejuvenation clinic.
- Disney Villain Death: Alex is killed when Vivien and Sophia force him off the roof.
- Earn Your Happy Ending: After spending their whole lives in an abusive "boarding school", and nearly getting killed while trying to escape it, Vivien, Sophia, and the other girls are freed by the police, basking in the outside world and the warmth of the sun for the very first time.
- Facial Horror: Dr. Miro slices the faces off of students and uses their skin for facial transplants. The girls discover this after coming across Rita's flayed corpse.
- First Time in the Sun: The girls are never allowed outdoors and there are no windows in the school to avoid sun exposure; this is to keep their skin as healthy and flawless as possible for the sponsors. It is not until the end that Sophia and Vivien get to feel the sun on their skin for the first time.
- Foreshadowing:
- Grace, when she receives the gift dress with her name on it asks Miss Brixil what does it say. Also Vivien and Sophia are seen struggling to read a label.
- Upon gifting the girls their dresses, Brixil orders them to hang them overnight first, because "We don't want wrinkles, do we?" Wrinkles and aging are exactly what the clinic treats, and they need the girls' skin to be flawless and smooth for the procedures.
- While pretending to sleep, Vivien and another girl, Olivia, are carried to a lounge. Miss Brixil presents the sleeping girls to an aging couple, who choose Olivia and make plans to purchase her, instead of adopting her, as the girls are told.
- Brixil takes the time to describe the quality of Vivien's skin to the couple. Meanwhile, the wife looks in a mirror and observes her face for a bit. All of this foreshadows the true intent of Vestalis: facial rejuvenation using the skin of young girls.
- Miss Brixil and the guards speaking Russian hints at Vestalis Academy being located in an unknown part of Russia.
- Gaslighting: Furious with Sophia stealing a security card, Dr. Miro pulls the old "We raised you, and this is how you repay us?" card on the girls, clearly painting Sophia as the bad guy.
- Hoist by His Own Petard: Miss Brixil attempts to inject Vivien with a drug, but the girl gains the upper hand by hitting her with a lamp and injecting her. Later on, the girls lock Brixil up in the same tiny cage that she punished Vivien with earlier.
- Human Resources: The girls are told that they are going to be adopted by rich families. In reality, the adoptive parents are clients at a rejuvenation clinic; the girls they "adopt" are actually killed and their skin is removed and used for a skin transplant.
- Human Traffickers: According to Dr. Miro, the girls were sold as babies to the facility by their parents.
- Kill the Cutie: Rita, the cheerful girl with the innocent demeanor, is the first character to die, with Miro flaying her face as punishment for Sophia's actions.
- Meaningful Name:
- Vestalis Academy. Vestals were priestesses of Vesta, the Roman goddess of the hearth, who could be punished for unchaste behavior by being Buried Alive.
- The girls themselves share first names with classic Hollywood stars: Vivien Leigh, Sophia Loren, Rita Hayworth, Ava Gardner, Grace Kelly. This ties into the film's theme of flawless feminine beauty.
- A Minor Kidroduction: The prologue briefly shows Vivien and Sophia as children on Level 10 (i.e. ten years old). After the title card, we cut to six years later.
- My God, What Have I Done?:
- Young Sophia can only cry in silence as her best friend is taken away for punishment, all because of her own blunder.
- Vivien immediately feels guilty about flushing her "vitamin" down the toilet on Sophia's advice, breaking the rules yet again. However, this ends up being the right call as the pill was a sedative.
- Never Learned to Read: When Miss Brixil gives Grace a new outfit with her name on it, she asks, "What does it say?" This foreshadows that the girls are not being raised to be adopted by top-society families like the facility says they are.
- No Good Deed Goes Unpunished: The girls form a line to use the sink and wash their faces in the morning. Sophia drops her jar of face cream and Vivien stops to help her pick it up in time, making her seconds late to the sink to wash her face. A red light and an alarm go off, and Vivien is dragged away to be punished.
- Nothing Is Scarier: We're never told what the guards do to girls who are taken downstairs to be punished, though Vivien confirms that they get hurt in some way.
- Older Than They Look: Miss Brixil, the facility manager has benefited from the facility's rejuvenation services.
- Rape as Drama: Sophia learns that Alex, one of the guards, secretly molests the girls while they are sedated. She attacks him the next time he tries to touch Vivien.
- The Reveal:
- The blue pills that the girls take are not vitamins, but sedatives that knock them out during bedtime, allowing Brixil and the guards to pick them out and display them for the buyers.
- Vestalis is not a boarding school, it's a farm and a clinic. The girls are raised to a certain age then harvested for their skin, which Dr. Miro uses for rejuvenative surgeries.
- Miss Brixil isn't just a part of Vestalis Clinic, she's a sponsor, meaning she underwent the de-aging procedure herself.
- Rule of Symbolism: The girls were raised to adhere to strict gender roles. As women, they must always be "clean", obedient, and cannot speak unless spoken to. At the end, who is the first person to rescue Sophia and Vivien? A female cop.
- Sound-Only Death: At the end, Dr. Miro is shot offscreen for his failure.
- Serious Work, Comedic Scene: The scene where Sophia masquerades as an employee to save the Lily Hall girls is Played for Laughs, offering some levity in an otherwise bleak film.
- Sinister Surveillance: Cameras record the girls while they are washing their faces in the morning.
- Tarnishing Their Own Beauty: Vivian slashes at her own face so that her skin cannot be farmed for a face transplant.
- Thousand-Yard Stare: Vivien shoots a pretty nasty one at Sophia when they reunite on Level 16. She's still livid about Sophia getting her punished back in Level 10.
- Wham Shot:
- Vivien and Sophia coming across Rita's skinned body. It's here when they realize just how evil the adults really are.
- The shot of the scars on the back of Miss Brixil's neck, revealing that she herself is a sponsor who used her own students' skin to look younger.
- White Hair, Black Heart: The platinum blonde Miss Brixil is a cruel and abusive manager who is complicit in the slaughter of young girls.
- Would Harm a Child:
- When Dr. Miro discovers that Vivien has not been taking her "vitamins" (really, sedatives), he forces an injection on her.
- Vivien makes it clear that Alex and the guards hurt the girls. At one point he gets into a scuffle with Sophia, and during the climax, he tries to kill her.
