22 Mar 2009
Horror Therapy: Fuck Willful Ignorance
As a staunch horror fan, I’m used to meeting people who have nothing positive to say about the genre. Who just don’t “get it”. Ironically, the same lot typically think of comic books as being juvenile, but that’s a discussion for later. They can’t see the worth of the thing. And, for my part, I begrudge no one this, despite it being an obvious sign on their part, of short-sightedness. But hey, we all beat our own path. However, I’ll be damned if I’m going to sit by and not speak on it’s behalf.
Most would rather encounter nothing in life that would upset their Mayberry status quo. Shiny happy people, holding hands, 24/7. But life rarely obliges. Most of us have memories we try to distract ourselves from, whether we admit it or not. It follows, that most turn away from real life horrors, out of some sense of self-righteous entitlement to calm waters. We fail to recall, at times, that it’s our world too. Even the unsavory bits.
‘Went out last night to catch the remake of Wes Craven’s Last House on the Left. The trailer for the redux piqued yee olde interest. Thought I’d give it a go. I didn’t care for the original, as I’d always viewed it as rape porn, with no redeeming value. That and it tapped into experiences from my own childhood, I’d spent years forcibly trying to forget. Monsters on my back. Things I’d myself, pretended away. Pain in my stomach. Reaching for something soothing, out of fear. Black breath in my ear. As happens, those demons weren’t content to simply sleep. No matter how much I strove to wipe my memory clean. Childhood sexual abuse doesn’t just go away.
Horror, and all it’s little fissures, capillaries and subgenres, acts as a sort of catharsis for many of us. It’s the one genre (Allowances for Drama, but c’mon, when a drama crosses that line…it’s in horror territory, and *you know it*. Schindler’s List and Silence of the Lambs, I’m looking at you.) that allows us to dig deep, down down down to places we fear within ourselves and the underbelly of the world, and come out the other side, alive. Perhaps even kicking. More often than not, better off than when we went in.
I get my popcorn, my drink and settle in the dark with the as-per-usual, obnoxious crowd. 20 minutes of commercials pass, few mildly exciting previews and I’m floating, drunkenly, through trees. I’m with a family. Retreating from the stress and toil of the world, to a holiday spot. Tranquility, dotted with the requisite loss and pain we all live with. But still, calm and serene. A twist, a turn and I’m face down in the muck, my clothes torn away, a beast pressed upon me, primordial gut-clearing distress punishing me…dirt in my mouth…blood under my nails…tears and cries aiding me not. No one’s coming to help me. Happy thoughts are blotted out and replaced by the feeling only the hunted can know. Through tears, I realize my fellow theatre patrons are all quiet. I doubt they knew what to expect, when they purchased their tickets. I doubt they had the slightest inkling what to do, aside from suffer quietly, along with everyone else. Here, where they’d doubtless come to expect sugary sweet excrement, ready for thoughtless consumption, they were being pushed to face facts. More, they were being made complicit. Welcome to the real world.
Some mistakenly call this glorification of the obscene. I call bullshit. It is through examining the monstrous tendencies of humankind, via such media, that I was eventually able to cope with my own victimization. Last House on the Left. I Spit on Your Grave. Jack Ketchum’s Girl Next Door. These are hard films to watch, without question. But they gave me the insight necessary to move beyond a mere pitiful victim, to a survivor not willing to lay down and play prey any longer. Horror movies gave me strength. More than any shrink ever even attempted. More than any bit of poetry was able. More than the most beautiful music ever came close to.
The world will punish us. Simple truth. But that doesn’t mean we have to just take it. We armor ourselves with knowledge. Especially of the sinister, cruel and hideous. Hiding from it acts only to tighten the noose. We owe it to ourselves to know. “There can be no light, without darkness” sounds so hilariously cliched, but it’s the goddamned truth.
That’s why I’ll defend my red-headed step-child of a genre to the end of my days.
