Some may take this as a sign that I am no longer dead inside, but I can assure you that's not true. It's just that, after eight months, I am running out of quality horror films to enjoy.
I have always been a fan of horror films but was never obsessed with the genre. A couple of weeks after my cat died last summer, I happened upon the horror streaming service Screambox, and a minor obsession was born. I have yet to determine whether it had anything to do with the fact that my cat was black.
Within a couple of months, I was subscribing to every service that had a decent modern horror catalog, which was pretty much everything but Hallmark and Lifetime. I got so hooked that I have been putting off watching new seasons of shows I love as well as non-horror movies that I truly want to watch. It got so addictive that I have been watching horror flicks instead of reading as I nod off to sleep at night.
Alas, I have now reached the point where most of the movies on my watch list are foreign films. As I do most of my viewing while tidying up my Morning Briefing late at night, movies with subtitles won't work. I'm saving those up for my nights off.
Along the way, I learned to take great comfort in the formulaic clichés of the horror genre. They became like drinking buddies who never ask a lot of probing questions and are fun to hang out with. It helps a lot that horror screenwriters and directors are all-in on the clichés, embracing them like lovers they can't live without but who they know will probably murder them in their sleep.
Here are a few of my observations.
After a while, dedicated horror fans learn that possession movies are difficult to take seriously if a blackbird doesn't fly into a window and die early on.
The mere mention of a basement door means three things: some idiot is going to down there long after he or she knows better, the basement door will then close by itself, and the lights will then go off as soon as the door slams. A standalone horror basement cliché features a character heading into a dark basement after the lights have gone off because that's where the breaker box is. Astute viewers start rooting hard for the evil in the movie after that.
The horror genre powers that be seemed to have decreed that at least ninety percent of the found footage movies made after "The Blair Witch Project" include a jerkoff male character everyone watching the movie wants to punch in the mouth after he says his first line. Also, "The Blair Witch Project" is still the best of the found footage flicks.
In most demonic possession movies, the first Catholic priest who shows up will insist that the Church doesn't really do exorcisms anymore and that the obviously possessed person is, in fact, bats**t crazy. The notable exception would be "The Pope's Exorcist," which has a lead character who would be out of a job if he wasn't throwing holy water on people whose heads spun around.
Oh, possessed kids are a kabillionty times scarier than possessed adults. The kids are innocent. When an adult character has a demon take over, I can't help but wonder what he or she did to deserve it.
I don't know why it's necessary to kill off the hottest woman in every horror flick, usually rather early. That convention kind of screams "mommy issues," doesn't it?
Neve Campbell does live through all of the "Scream" movies, but those are slasher flicks and not technically horror.
I wrote in this post last summer that one thing I loved most about the genre is that I didn't have to worry about characters barfing up liberal nonsense. For the most part, that's true. The recent work of Mike Flanagan ruined that for me. When he stays away from too much politics ("The Haunting of Hill House" and "Ouija: Origin of Evil") it's horror red meat.
Netflix has given the very prolific Flanagan a nice contract, and his latest efforts have gone off of the leftist cliff. It's a shame because he is cranking out a lot of material. I'm convinced he's on his way to writing a possession script featuring a demon who promises to go away if all of the billionaires are taxed more.
I'm moving into the Japanese horror fare just in time.
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