Robert Dunbar Speaks the Truth, Yo

 So this is a funny post to me. Back in 2007 when I sought out author Robert Dunbar's book "The Pines," it was because I had heard his book was horrible and violent and awful, and it was, and back then I thought life was terrible, and this was all we had to hope for, so I read it. And gave me what I thought I wanted. Horror and gore and pain.

See, the book is all about a woman who has a mentally disabled son, and her life is horrible and hopeless,  but slowly she begins to discover there may be something more, and beyond the horror there may be hope. And young 20s me, I rejected it. I told people there was nothing there but gore and pain. But parts of the story niggled at my mind. So when a second part to the story was released, "The Shore," I  read it. And my heart swelled.  Because here, in the midst of all the horror, lay some hope. Finally! And I was afraid, but I was hopeful! And then, months later,  came the third book in the trilogy, "The Streets, "and I was afraid (for good reason) but here lay even more hope! And I wanted to share it!

Because here is the bare truth, unedited. Horror has always given me hope. From when I was 10 years old and I saw a movie where people on a cruise ship were fighting Jason Voorhees, and I knew people would always strike out against evil, I knew good would always try to win. And maybe the 8th movie in the "Jason Voorhees" saga was terrible,  but maybe it gave me hope and that's ok because the bad might be all around us, but we can still strike out against the evil. And that might seem stupid, and the small good things are tiny against the big, flashy evil that is Jason Voorhees,  but we can still fight. Even if it is small, some good is better than nothing.

So 10 year old me, she had lots of non-movie  related reasons to give up. But she still had hope. Found in the middle of the horror. 

So here comes 30 year old me, who has a college degree and a lot of reasons to ignore the horrors of her past, and a lot of reasons why these books by Robert Dunbar shouldn't be considered "literature, " and here  I could trail off into oblivion, but here we also find hope...even the characters who are doomed to darkness and to death, here even the woman from the opening sequences is given a voice as the evil sucks her soul into darkness and to death, here we see her sink into nothing, but she still has something to say. And we know her story mattered. Because she was a person and maybe even our stories which fade into darkness and to death might matter. Because we are people too. 

I may not gave the bravery yet, to write about the woman in the book "The Shore," who is abused and beat down but still transforms into some sort of powerful, because even horrific abuse can't hold her down and silence her forever, but soon I will tell her story,  and soon her power will overcome darkness and death  and I thank God for the power I have, and the power you have, to fight against the evil, even as you sit in the darkness and wait for the sunrise. The night is dark, but the dawn is coming.  In Jesus's name,  amen. 

Pet Sematary: Do You Get It?

 So I watched the "Pet Sematary" remake, and then I read all the other reviews online, and I started to understand that our different reactions to the movie might be part of a bigger misunderstanding about the whole story. Who knows.

So when I was a kid, "Stephen King" was the name that represented " horror and everything bad" with the world. My whole chdhood,  my mom told me could never read Stephen King books until I was old enough to "understand them." At some point that became when I was 12 years old, so soon after my 12th birthday,  I asked her if I could read a Stephen King book, and she sighed, and said yes, as long as it wasn't her nemesis "The Shining." She had seen the movie, and that was too perverse for her.  So I ran to the horror section the library, and the only title I recognized on the shelf was "Cujo," so I went to check that book out, but it turned out someone had just turned in the book "Pet Sematary," so I asked the librarian which book was better, and she told me "Pet Sematary" was her favorite,  so I decided to check that out instead.  So that was the first book I read of Stephen King's. "Pet Sematary."

The funny thing is,  the first time I read that novel, my reaction was what every publicist would want: that the book was scary and terrifying. Because it was. But the thing is, I read the book like 2 years later (I was a kid trapped at home, I didn't have much to do) and the second time I read the book through, I discovered the secret. The book isn't scary, it's SAD. Like totally depressing,  in a soul-crushing way. 

This main character tries to start a family, and it gets hard and scary, because the world is totally dangerous for kids, so he moves to a place where life is supposed to be better,  but death follows him, but then he discovers that maybe death can be overcome, so he tries to beat death, but death and evil corrupts everything he loves until he has no choice but to surrender to the evil in the hope he can turn it around.  And that's how the book ends. With him trying to turn the evil around,  but we know it probably won't work. 

So here comes the remake movie, and almost from the beginning it takes a different path from the one the original movie takes, so it goes in a different direction,  but it ends in the same way the original ends. And maybe that's the problem. See, I'm not the same 12 year old who read the original novel back in the day.  I'm over 20 years older than that. I've lived through a lot. So I can see different ways out that probably 12 year old me couldn't see. But still...the ending of the remake of the movie resonates with me in a way that a way the original might not. Because...I can see death triumphing over life. Depressing,  right?

Maybe it doesn't feel right,  but it seems wrong to condemn a movie just because it ends the horrific way i always feared the original would. To darkness and to death. This is how the book is heading, and that movie,  with the "car door unlock sound" that it ends with, seems fitting in a way the original movie failed to capture. Everything will be corrupted. Here it comes. Maybe the original movie didn't have the guts to say it,  but here it is. The end of everything. To darkness and to death.

The part of me that tries to believe that things can be good wants to argue with this. Say not all hope is lost,  things can still turn around. But part of me holds fast,  because it remembers a time when no one listened to me because I was "crazy." I used to try and tell my family that things were wrong, things were broken,  and everything was going to sink into darkness and to death if we didn't turn things around...and it all came to naught. Because it turns out,  everyone would rather I disappear than listen to what I was saying.  So either I had to disappear or leave...so I chose to leave, and I lost the only family I had known.

The trick of being the only person who sees the bad in the midst of everyone who insists everything is fine is that you spend the rest of your life worried that everything might be ending even when everything might be ok. And it's ok. You're not broken. You've just been gifted with the curse that you see the terrible truth that no one else wants to see.

So when the ending of this movie comes, are you surprised? I wasn't surprised,  but I  felt like my stomach had been punched,  and I felt the horror that I think the original movie was supposed to give me, and I couldn't be mad.

This story is horror, no matter what form it takes. Boo. Just like  a 12 year old who doesn't know what she's getting herself into,  let's approach this story and say "damn, you got it right." The real horror. Whether we want to see it or not.

2021 So What have we Learned so Far

 One thing that has been made abundantly clear for me throughout my life as a lover of horror is that people don't get it. They don't understand why I'm drawn to the horrible and the grotesque and the evil that walks among us unknown, until it shows itself, and then when it shows itself in movies, those movies are condemned.

Seriously, it's caused many an argument. One time I was talking about the movie "I Spit on Your Grave," which has an infamous almost half hour rape scene in it, and someone asked me why I still said the movie is worth seeing. And I said  "well, rape is horrific, and if it's going to be portrayed in a movie, i want them to show it is horrific, and not some sanitized Hollywood bullshit." He told me this made no sense. I don't blame him, because a lot of people would agree with him.

So I promised to make this big blog post about the book "The Shore" by Robert Dunbar, and I promise I totally meant to follow through with that, but I got to this part early in the book where a woman is treated let's say "badly," and even though I guessed back then what might be happening,  and I can confirm now is actually what might be going on, it hit me in the gut. 

It hurts to have a male character telling a female character who is tied up that she,"makes him" do this, because it rings too true to real things that have really happened to me. 

But isn't that the whole point? These books, "The Pines," "The Shore,"and "The Streets" are important because they show an aspect of life that isn't shown often in our world, and it hurts because our lives have necessitated that we tell lies about ourselves for so long that we've forgotten who we are and where we came from. Maybe these books are a step forward in telling the truth about our lives, no matter how painful it may be. I pray this is the truth, and I promise to put on my big girl panties and try to face the truth. Because it is important 

In Jesus's name,  amen.

2020 October Horror Challenge #101: "Halloween (2018)"

 

I've loved John Carpenter's "Halloween" my whole life. It feels like home to me, trick-or-treating, eating candy, telling ghost stories with friends, and being afraid of what lurks in the shadows. That movie is the essence of Halloween to me. I like most of the sequels, I even like the remake, and when I heard about this new, revamped version, I was excited to watch it, too. I'm hoping it captures at least some of the magic of the original movie. Michael Myers is and will always be the boogeyman, after all.

In this movie,  it's been 40 years since Laurie Strode survived the vicious Massacre on Halloween night, where Michael Myers killed all her friends and almost killed her too. Laurie Strode still has scars from that attack long ago, both physical and emotional. She's had a rough life, a few divorces, lost custody of her daughter, has a rocky relationship with her granddaughter. Her life is kind of a mess, but at least she's alive. Unfortunately, Michael Myers,  who has been in a catatonic state in an institution since the murders, but when a patient transfer goes haywire, Michael escapes, and he's on his way to finish Laurie once and for all. Little does he know, she's expecting him and she has her own plans to send him to hell once and for all.

I'm going to sound like the hugest nerd in the world, but I loved the opening credits of this movie. That haunting theme music, the smashed jack-o-lantern slowly regenerating itself, seeing the actors I  was excited to watch in the movie ahead (Jamie Lee Curtis of course, and Judy Greer too! I love her! She plays Laurie'sdaughter Karen) That definitely put me in the mood to watch the movie. This movie pretends none of the sequels happened, and it's just picking up after the events of the first movie, so the confusing,  twisty timeline is simplified. I like how one teenager asks another if Laurie Strode was Michael Myers ' sister and she sarcastically replies "no, someone made that up." HAHAHAHAHAHAHA! Good one.

I kinda feel bad for Laurie Strode in this movie. I'm sure that she's annoying with her constant fear of the boogeyman, and Judy Greer plays her long-suffering daughter who's sick of her mom's alcoholism and general fear of the world, and I empathize, but I still feel bad for Laurie. If you think about it and someone killed all your friends when you were a teenager and you saw him get stabbed, shot, and fall out of a second story window, you'd be messed up too. I would be terrified of a killer who seemingly can't be killed. Yeah, living your life in fear is a bad idea, but still, I can empathize.

There are some great scenes in this movie. There's a stalk and  slash sequence in a bathroom that rocks, there's a great part where Laurie's granddaughters friend is babysitting and Michael has other bloody plans. I love everything about this scene. The babysitter's fun banter with the kid she's babysitting reminds me of Laurie and Tommy's in the original movie, and it made me connect with the character, which was nice (though I'm kinda pissed...if a kid says there's a man in his room and you promise to look but you don't even bother to look in the closet, you're a dumbass).

It's cool to see the role reversals in this movie. In the original,  Laurie was the shy, quiet girl who loved babysitting, but in this movie, her granddaughter is the one out partying while her friend stays in and babysits. Karen may have hated her mom's fear and paranoia growing up, but when her own daughter Allison is missing, she's the one losing her mind and screaming at cops while her mom has to calm her down. And no one can replace Donald Pleasance,  but Haluk Biligner, who plays Michael's psychiatrist in this movie, comes pretty close. His voice sounds so much like Donald Pleasance that I had to do a double take more than once. Plus his character is great in this movie too. I love that twisted obsession he has with Michael Myers (very reminiscent of Dr. Loomis). The scenes of Michael stalking the streets of a small town are great, the final home invasion showdown is cool (I love that nod to the original where Michael falls off the roof then you look back and he's gone...apparently he's not the only one with that ability) and overall I just really enjoyed this movie. Happy Halloween!

2020 October Horror Challenge #100: "The Stepford Wives (1975)"

 

This movie is based on a book written by Ira Levin. So was "Rosemary's Baby," and when I watched that movie, it sucker punched me out of nowhere and haunted me for days. After that happened,  I turned into a big baby and chickened out of ever watching this movie, so the DVD has been sitting on my shelf for like 14 years. The thing is, I know everything that's going to happen in this movie, I've had the whole plot spoiled for me over the years, but I also knew everything that was going to happen in "Whatever Happened to Baby Jane" too, and look how that turned out. I've managed to conquer my fears and watch some other movies I was afraid to watch this year for the horror challenge, so here goes.

I'm sure you know what this movie is about. A woman named Joanna played by Katharine Ross, moves with her husband and children to a small town to get away from the city. There's something weird about the town though. The men are a tight-knit group who seem to be keeping secrets, and most of the wives seem vapid and subservient to their husbands. The only real friend Joanna can find is Bobbie, played by Paula Prentiss, who is another new transplant to the town of Stepford who agrees that the town is a little creepy. They begin digging into the town's history trying to find answers, and what they discover is horrifying. 

So it's obvious that this movie has feminist overtones. The men of Stepford have boorish,  outdated views on how women should behave, and their vision of the ideal wife is obedient to her husband, has no real interests of her own, and lives to serve her man. Needless to say, this doesn't go over well with the new wives who move to Stepford and want to have lives of their own that don't revolve around pleasing their husbands.

The thing is, Joanna is kind of a jerk. She's on her husband's case a lot and wants to argue with him a lot, and I get how that can be annoying,  but that's just what having a relationship with another human is like. You're going to butt heads, disagree, compromise. Would you really want to trade that in for a marriage to an obedient little robot who agrees with everything you say? I wouldn't,  and I would hope most people wouldn't want that either. Movies like this where people want to control their spouse just get under my skin, so the whole movie experience is uncomfortable for me (that's why they call it horror though, I guess). This kind of movie will always be more horrific for me. I can watch a million monsters rip people's heads off, but give me a movie like this and I want to cover my eyes and cower in fear.

The scariest part about watching this movie is watching Joanna grow more and more terrified as time passes because she sees the way the women in town act, she sees her friends change from women with personality to robotic, obedient little drones, and she knows that it's going to happen to her soon, and there's nothing she can do to save herself. Her husband who used to love her now wants to order her around like she's a pet, and she doesn't  know what's happening or how to stop it. When Joanna is confronting her former friend Bobbie trying to get her to admit that she's changed, or snap her out of whatever trance she seems to be in, and she's crying, yelling "when I cut myself I bleed, do YOU bleed?" It's pretty terrifying. And the fact that her husband gives in and agrees to whatever horrible plan the town has, I want to punch him in the face. I want a partner, not a robot, and it makes me sick that people would settle for anything less. So yeah, this movie is scary, and it makes me sick to my stomach,  but in a good way that let's me know it's done its job well.

2020 October Horror Challenge #99: "Summer of Fear(1978)"

 

I'm glad I wasn't just imagining this movie. I could swear to God "Summer of Fear" was a young adult novel by the author Lois Duncan (she also wrote "I Know  what you did Last Summer") but then I thought that might just be in my head, since I only vaguely remembered the title of this book, then Amazon recommended this movie to me, and I looked it up online, and yep, Lois Duncan book. This is also an early Wes Craven horror movie that would probably have been a Lifetime movie of the week if it hadn't come out years before Lifetime movies existed. I figured since this was a Wes Craven movie, I would enjoy it, so I gave it a shot.

In this movie, a young woman named Rachel's life is turned upside down when her cousin Julia comes to stay with her family after the mysterious death of her parents. Strange things start happening, and it almost seems like Rachel is cursed all of a sudden. More and more strange occurrences happen, and soon Rachel begins to suspect that befcousin isn't as innocent as she appears. Eventually, Rachel begins to suspect that Julia is using witchcraft to control people and get what she wants.

The thing about Lois Duncan is that she flies under the radar a lot because she's this sweet lady who doesn't have cussing in her books and she seems to write "horror lite" so you underestimate  her, think her books aren't going to be that bad, and then she punches you in the face and throws you off a bridge, and you're in the water trying not to drown and wondering what the hell happened. "Daughters of Eve" is a book she wrote that is legitimately terrifying, and "Stranger with My Face" still creeps into my nightmares from time to time, and I read that over twenty years ago. I don't know how she does it, but somehow,  someway, she weaves a story in a way that it sticks with you, and wiggles its way into your mind and pushes buttons you didn't even know existed. 

This movie is a good example of that storytelling. There are these little details that are freaky in a way that I never expected. Like Julia is jealous because Rachel has a horse she loves, so Rachel puts a curse on the horse, hoping it will die, just to hurt Rachel. That's mean and cruel (seriously,  who does that? If you want to hurt people that's bad enough, but to harm a poor animal just to hurt someone who loves it?) The story also plays on the fear of being the only person who sees the evil in someone,  while everyone else loves that person. It's horrible feeling powerless and watching people around you get hurt when there's nothing you can do to stop it.

This movie deals with some themes that are common to Duncan's books. Envying someone's life so much that you try to take over their life, supernatural forces intruding onto everyday life, the banality of evil. Linda Blair plays Rachel in this movie (damn, she always gets hurt by supernatural forces) and she does a good job playing an innocent girl who's trying to keep evil from hurting the people she loves. Lee Purcell plays Julia, and she pulls off the creepy interloper role very well. The movie is cheesyand silly in places, but it works pretty well. I'm glad I watched it.

October Horror Challenge #98: "Get Out (2017)"

 

Ok, I'll  be honest with y'all.  I bought this movie as soon as it came out,  so I've had it for a few years now. But every time it came around to watching it...I chickened out. I watched the trailer and it actually made me cry, I was so freaked out.  So I put off watching it because I was afraid. I mean,  I honestly think I KNOW what happens. I'm not white, but I *look* white, so people feel comfortable making the vilest racist comments around me, and it makes me want to puke and die. I don't want to live in a world where those things are ok to think and say (if people say that out loud, think of what they might hold back?) So yeah. Racism. Ew. And from gleaning what I've heard online, I'm pretty sure I have a good idea what happens in this movie. Similar to "The Stepford Wives," in a lot of ways, which I'm already the hugest baby because I bought that movie years ago and I'm afraid to watch it too. So yeah, I'm a huge baby. And I'm scared. But I'm watching this movie today, because I think it deserves that much. 

So this movie is about a guy named Chris and his girlfriend named Rose. They've been dating for awhile, so they're at the "hey, let's meet my parents" stage of dating, so Chris heads away for a trip to meet Rose's parents. At first, Rose's parents seem overly accommodating, and he chalks it up to her parents being nervous because of the difference in race (he's black, she's white). As time goes on, though their behavior seems more and more sinister. Soon he's fighting for his sanity, his soul,  and his life.

So last year a friend of mine watched "Tales From the Hood" for the first time, and he complained that the movie was racist, because all the white people were racist against black people. I tried to explain to him that first, that wasn't true, there were some good white people in the movie, but they weren't in big roles because for the first time, most of the characters in the movie were black. Most of the time, all the people in these horror movies I watch are white, so it's rare to see a black character, let alone them be the majority of the characters in the movie. Second, these "tales from the" type movies are about bad people getting to hell and being forced to review their pasts  looking back on their lives and seeing how what they did was wrong, so yes, most of the white people are racist just like most of the black people are violent and evil, because they're BAD and the stories in the movie will reveal how and why they are bad people and why they deserve the punishment of hell. Third...dude, watch all these horror movies with almost all white characters,  then pick the only movie in the whole bunch that contains actual black people, then say that movie is racist against whites. He said that helped him put things into perspective.

I think the worst part of all of this is...he loves her. Chris really loves Rose, so he's willing to put up with a lot from her family because he really cares for her. You can see it in his eyes when he looks at her and talks to her. I've been in love before,  and it made me ignore red flags that could have covered several acres of land, because I loved that person, and LOVE CONQUERS ALL, right? It's do wrong to take advantage if that love, but people do it every day.

So at one point I'm screaming at the screen "no, what's wrong with you?! You're doing the same thing all the stupid white people do in the horror movies,  you dumbass!" And yeah, true facts. When Chris calls his friend halfway through the movie, and his friend tries to warn him that the situation is fucked up, but Chris doesn't want to listen...I was screaming at the screen, like I do during horror movies (why do they never listen to me?) It's just...during some movies, we're watching like...mutated fish rip people's heads off, right? And that's not going to happen,  right? But there are a depressing number of white people who hate black people and think they need to be subdued and controlled...so you can't comfort yourself with "oh, well, it's just a movie, it's pretend" BECAUSE IT'S REAL. Or it could be real. And that's what makes it terrifying. 

In movies like this, It's often a choice between the person in danger keeping quiet and trying to please everyone,  or choosing to run and save whatever life they can salvage from the wreckage. Take it from one survivor who ran...even over 20 years later, I sometimes look back and question my choice. I know the danger I was in, I know the daily death threats I heard, I can still feel the plaster from the wall hitting my face when someone shoved a knife into the wall right next to my head...and sometimes I still miss the family I had that I wish I was crazy just so I could take it back.That's just as crazy as it sounds, but it's true. The only family and home I knew was slowly killing me, yet sometimes I wish I coduld go back. So I get how Rose feels in this movie. She loves her boyfriend,  but she loves her family, and she's known them all her life. So what does she believe? Who does she choose? Or is it even a choice, has she known the truth all along and she's just playing along with the sick game?

So the movie is over, and I'm done having my panic attack,  and I'm thinking...honestly, I'm not sure what to think. At one point during the conclusion, I was sure the movie had jumped the shark, and it was just too silly to be salvageable, but then it kept going, and it got scary again, then silly, then scary, then funny (in a good way) and overall,  my opinion of the movie is positive. I think it does a lot right, and taps into some deep seeded fears (meeting your partner's parents is often terrifying, even if no one is a big old psycho). Like Jordan Peele (the director) says, it "rings true." But I just feel like the movie gives too much away and becomes more physiological than psychological, and it would be better keeping more hidden and unknown. Thpugh I've watched the special features, and the alternate ending was something I liked better than the theatrical ending, but I understand why he changed it, and I do think it works out in the end.  Stephen King once said that no matter how mysterious you try to keep your villain, at some point you have to put on the monster mask and go "ooga booga!" And when you do, you run the risk of the audience saying "oh THAT'S IT?! I thought it would be way worse," and maybe that's what I'm doing now. But so much of this movie is good and worth checking out that I won't let some ambivalence about its  conclusion make me miss that it's a good movie. Just maybe flawed. But better than a lot of movies, so it works for me. I'm glad I finally watched it.