and I am looking at cake

I sometimes think my biggest problem in life is my relationship with horror movies, and this aspect of my personality seeps into every aspect of how I deal with the world.

Stephen King calls horror movies social commentaries. I consider them research for worst case scenarios. i sit down, watch, say, The Ring, and learn not to watch blank tapes of unknown origin and keep my child from my video collection. Halloween? Don't have sex on or around holidays. Nightmare on Elm Street? You totally see where my insomnia comes from. And my personal moment of epiphany--vampires have taught me the best places to give hickies.

I mean, let's face it, as a human being, I'm more prepared for an army of zombies to attack than I am for a tax audit. And the thing is? I am scared to death of horror movies.

I cannot sit through The Candyman. I cannot cannot cannot. Forget Hellraiser. If you mention The Hostel or Saw, I will be hiding. Mutilation and ultraviolence don't do much for me. I can't sit through it so I never get hit by it and it won't haunt me for the rest of my natural life, and really, what's the point otherwise? The real balance to be achieved is the fine line of not getting too graphic with the violence so I don't have a excuse to leave, and enough pure terror to freeze me to my seat. That's why The Ring worked, Halloween worked, and a couple of the Friday the Thirteenths and Nightmare on Elm Steets worked *really well*. Not enough to trigger my gag reflex, and enough tension to hold me in place. I like implications far more than I want to see the reality on the screen.

However--this is where it gets trickier. I do like the plotlines. Hellraiser had a supercool plot concept, and that pissed me off, because I literally could not be in the same room with it. It stops being pleasure when skinning is involved. So I go looking for movie *summaries* or reviews, or in a really wonderful world, a TWOP style commentary on both that I can get through. And that's kind of like substituting vicadin for heroin. You get the high, but it's not nearly as good and it doesn't last as long.

Which again, isn't as fun. There's also the entire nightmares for weeks and terror and the way Samara followed me around and I still get chills from the memory of Freddy and why I love, love, love Dracula.

But. Hee's my bigget problem with horror movies.

The wrong people always die.

Okay, if i were an evil spirit bent on destruction--why in the *name of God* am I killing off the sluts and bad people first? They're *my kind*. THey cause havoc and broken marriages and bad Saturday nights with ice cream. I mean, I'm just saying, it's always them first. Which is why I get annoyed, because evil darkness should have the common sense to go after the annoying good people first, and get them out of the way. Plus, lets' face it, if you're a villian, you want to cement your evil in place, you kill like, buses of orphans and stuff. Kililng Betty the Town Slut does not show you are evil. For all we know, she uses her teeth too much during blowjobs and pissed the Evil Thing off.

It's annoying.

In other news, I'm so bored. But I'm reading though horror movie reviews of movies. Anyone know a good site for it?

Also, to fyrdrakken - totally check out this body cavity cake. Kick ass. Seriously.

Comments

[logovo.livejournal.com]

Haven't finished reading your post but clicked on the link.
OK, that cake? Seriously just ....
*willies*

[seperis.livejournal.com]

I KNOW! Isn't that just the ickiest and coolest thing ever?

[researchgrrrl.livejournal.com]

Personally, I've been grooving on horror stories recorded as audiobooks. It's the perfect amount of stimulation for my nervous system -- I can't escape wodges of words the way I can when I read the books but I have far better visual effects than any movie has ever managed.

My biggest freak-out to this day is the original Night of the Living Dead because of the incredibly slow, shambling approach of the zombies and just being absolutely helpless to stop more and more of them from showing up. The fact that they never moved quickly, that they were just an unstoppable swell of horrific death...oh, man. I can't even watch amateur films of lava flows because it hits the very same buttons.

Because of that, Shaun of the Dead was exactly the right blend of horror and pathos contrasted with how real people would be dealing with that shit. I scream EVERY TIME when Shaun slips on the unseen viscera in the convenience store. Man. Those? Those are my people, the regular folks who are in over their heads at any given moment.

And that cake, well, it takes the cake. That's exquisite. I can't stop looking. If I do find some good horror movie review sites, I'll send 'em your way.

[seperis.livejournal.com]

Isn't it fantastic? They also have a zombie one and another one. Just blew my mind.

And man, Night of the Living Dead. Oh *yeah*.

[sobelle.livejournal.com]

Have you always liked horror movies/stories?

I'm so curious as to why anyone would want to be frightened for the fun of it. Is it the adrenalin rush and relief aferwards?

Really, the only scarey movie/story I've ever been willing to watch/read is Alien/s... I can hang with the idea of scarey monsters far far away.

And? omg! that body cavity cake... did I mention OMG!

love, pollyanna

[seperis.livejournal.com]

Yes. It's linked up to my sci-fi/fantasy thing in a lot of ways. It's--adrenaline, yes, but it's the *story* that just blows me out of the water. Horror, sci-fi, and fantasy always have the weirdest and most intersting stoies to me. *g*

[nifra-idril.livejournal.com]

Okay, so sometimes after seeing horror movies, I replay all the events in my head and think of ways to live through things. Mainly, basing decisions on survival instincts and cowardice seems to save me, in my mind. This makes me feel unneccesarily confident about my ability to live through zombie attack, etc, because survival instincs and cowardice are two things I definitely have.

But you know the movies that really freak me out? The ones about serial killers. Sometimes after having seen one of those, I'll go for a week long period, thinking about the ways all of the household objects around me could be used as defensive weapons should some psycho killer try to abduct and murder me. One time I thought I heard somebody breaking into the house when I was alone, and I armed myself with two bottles of perfume and the ladder from my little sister's bed to go investigate. The rationale was that I would spray the perfume in the guy's eyes, blind him, break the bottle and throw the shards at his head and then hit him with the ladder.

These are the things I spend time thinking about, Jenn. I - am a special person.

[researchgrrrl.livejournal.com]

One time I thought I heard somebody breaking into the house when I was alone, and I armed myself with two bottles of perfume and the ladder from my little sister's bed to go investigate. The rationale was that I would spray the perfume in the guy's eyes, blind him, break the bottle and throw the shards at his head and then hit him with the ladder.

Hi. I know we haven't been introduced (although I've read your SV, BtVS, and FF fic and have been too lame to get my gushy fangirl letter to you yet) but after reading this?

I think I kind of have a crush on you.

That's some serious damned strategy, dude. You totally just made my afternoon. Perfume and a ladder. That's awesome. That's may top the two survival tools (or What You Need to be a Strong Woman) that a friend of mine relies on: prayer and a can of Raid. Whatever hellish thing that the Good Lord doesn't thwart for her in a timely enough fashion, she knows she can fuck its shit up with that bugspray.

[seperis.livejournal.com]

*eyes fill with tears* You are My True People. *wipes eyes quickly* God bless you.

[akacat]

If you liked 'The Ring', then you'll probably like 'Dark Water. Of course, the Japanese version of each is better than the US.

if i were an evil spirit bent on destruction--why in the *name of God* am I killing off the sluts and bad people first?

Two possibilities:

1 - Maybe the non-sluts are frigid and are actually the bad people.

2 - Maybe they want to get rid of the competition.

[seperis.livejournal.com]

Hmm, point.

But you'd think they'd want the Bad People's assistance, you know? Stupid evil monsters.

[ratcreature]

Wow, that cake is very cool. I'm much too lazy to ever attempt something like this but it's very impressive and looks surprisingly gross for being an edible cake.

[seperis.livejournal.com]

*sighs* Yeah, me too. But so cool to look at.

[logovo.livejournal.com]

The wrong people always die.

As I understand it we the public should be getting our jollies from the bad people dying first, because they deserve it. Or something. But yes, the Evil Overlord rules apply here and of course if we were the Big Evil killing people we would first look for the nice guy, who happens to be an ex-marine who can kill a dozen zombies with cardboard and duck tape, and only after taking care of that would we visit the Town Slut With Bad Hair.

[seperis.livejournal.com]

Exactly! Evil should be smarter, dammit. Or at least more practical.

[tamalinn.livejournal.com]

why in the *name of God* am I killing off the sluts and bad people first?
you know, i always kinda wondered that myself.

Killing Betty the Town Slut does not show you are evil. For all we know, she uses her teeth too much during blowjobs and pissed the Evil Thing off.
*snickersnort*

[entanglement.livejournal.com]

Which is why I get annoyed, because evil darkness should have the common sense to go after the annoying good people first, and get them out of the way.

I had a sudden inspiration while reading this entry that has dragged me out of my usual comfort zone of fangirly lurkage: Evil does go after the Heroic Good Guys Who Survive Improbable Odds and whacks them first only to discover that the remaining Town Sluts and Lacksadasiacal Losers -- the folk who are, Good Omens-style, sauntering vaguely downward rather than cementing their reservation to Hell with exploded busloads of orphans -- step into the Good Guy shoes and take their place, thereby making World Domination for Evil rather akin to that carnival game with the padded mallet and the gophers popping out of their plastic holes. Evil slouches on away from Bethlehem, and Betty the Former Town Slut convenes her Cabinet in the post-apocalyptic American Renaissance.

....;;;;;,,,,,!!?? <-- please feel free to distribute this punctuation as you would, to chop that run-on paragraph into actual sentences.

I guess there's experiments that work kind of like this plot idea, where you look at ant hills and find Lazy Ants and Worker Ants; if you step on all the Worker Ants, Lazy Ants will turn into Worker Ants, and the hill will keep on truckin'.

[deadlychameleon.livejournal.com]

The big bad always kills the bad people first because it plays off of fears. Oh no! I can't sleep with my boyfriend because it's wrong and something bad might happen! Sometimes there are innocent casualties, but if so, it's because their death hurts someone who did do something wrong. At the end of the movie, people can walk away and say, hey, I'm a good person, the mythological bad things aren't going to hurt me. It's a moral parable.

[aivilo-18.livejournal.com]

Which is why I get annoyed, because evil darkness should have the common sense to go after the annoying good people first, and get them out of the way. Plus, lets' face it, if you're a villian, you want to cement your evil in place, you kill like, buses of orphans and stuff.

True. I think this is why I found The Exorcist so completely terrifying. Because Regan, for the first part of the movie, was such a sweet, "Golly/Gee-Whiz!" kind of kid and it was almost to the point where it was annoying. But then she starts changing and I'm all up in the "Holy fuck! What the hell is happening?" and the whole "Spider Walking Sequence" happens and you *know* somethings Really Very Wrong. Y'know, just in case all that bed-shaking and urinating on the carpets while calling people cocksuckers didn't have you clueing in the first time around. But the whole premise of the movie is "Sweet kid gets possessed by a demon and bad bad shit happens", which is brilliant because once you introduce a kid into the equation and if that kid is just the nicest, sweetest thing since Jesus himself, when that kid starts punching her mother and throwing up on priests and doing 360 degree head rotations, it's way more horrifying than if the director had decided to make Regan a dirty, slutty whore,

On a more personal note, The Exorcist got me on so many levels that I literally can't watch that movie. I can't be in the same room as that movie. I can't listen to it, which means that even if I'm in another room, if I hear it? I freak. I can't look at film stills or screen caps. I just...can't. I fucking lose my shit. Now, this all has to do with the fact that when I watched The Exorcist, I was 10 years old and sneaking behind my parents' back because they *told* me that, just because I was able to read the book and not get scared, it didn't mean I could make it through the movie without becoming Deeply, Deeply Traumatized. And I thought they were wrong. And then they *so* weren't wrong and now I have a phobia-sized fear of Linda Blair in all forms. I think maybe I wouldn't have had such a bad reaction to the film if I had watched it when I was a little older because now all I can associate with that film now is a deep-seated terror and a memory of having trouble sleeping because of it. Although hearing Regan yell to Father Merrin that his mother sucks cock in hell was, and still is, pretty freakin' amusing.

[protoplasmica.livejournal.com]

I totally agree with you about the gore versus scare thing. I think, and you may laugh at this, that the Blair Witch Project was the scariest movie I've ever seen---simply because you never see the villain and what (s)he does to the victims (if anything!).

Oh and if you can stand foreign language films with subtitles, you may want to check out Vaastu Shastra. I think this is, quite possibly, the best Bollywood horror movie out there.

[neery.livejournal.com]

Oh god, that cake. It does not look edible at all, except possible in the way that hearts are edible if you want to be very gross. Totally a work of art, but not of the kind I ever want to look at again.

[nebulist.livejournal.com]

I don't like not being able to sleep for two weeks, so I avoid even well done non-graphic horror movies like The Ring. So I often ask people to explain the plots of horror movies, because I am curious and I will never watch.

[out-there.livejournal.com]

1) That cake was disgusting. *That* is the reason I don't watch the surgery scenes in Nip/Tuck.

2) It stops being pleasure when skinning is involved. Ewww. Also, that's very true. Movies where you see the violence freak me out (mainly because I'm bound to have graphic nightmares about it that night). The implications are far scarier; I have enough imagination to get it.

Which is also why Zoe's line abut the Reavers in the Firefly pilot remains -- to me -- one of the most chill-inspiring lines. It all works on implications.

3) Oh, I don't know. I have no point, but I wanted to use the number three anyway.

[fyrdrakken]

IIRC, Hellraiser was based on a Clive Barker book. Try reading some of his stuff.

And the thing about the bad people always getting it in horror movies has to do with the cultural reinforcement they provide. I took a course on SF and horror movies in college (just because it was offered, you know?) and one of the things was about how horror is aimed at adolescents and meant to show people being punished for stepping outside society's norms. Which is why the people who have premarital sex die and the virgin is the sole survivor of the teen slasher flick, etc. There was some great stuff about The Exorcist that I can't remember enough about.

And thanks for the cake link!

[editorzon.livejournal.com]

OMG me too! I saw The Exorcist when I was ten (wasn't suppose to be watching it either) and I'm the exact same way. I have such a deep fear of that movie and I can't be in the house if it's on. I can kinda watch it if someone is with me but you know that I'll be sleeping with the lights on. When they re-released it a few years back, with the extra footage? Oh bad idea! It amazes me that no other movie that I was scared of as a child still hits me this way. I'm so glad I'm not the only one! Hmmm, well The Shining still gives me some tense moments too but not nearly as bad...