By, Wendiann Alfieri
Welcome to this series I am writing for my website.
I will share a "Rule Of Thumb", a rule I personally follow and my reasons why
I love horror movies, all year round. Halloween is what it all leads up to. it's the prom for society. it's the freedom from projected and inflected standards. No one is allowed to say a goddamn thing about Halloween, because it's freedom to celebrate the odd. Fall is the cozy season for the bizarre.
Halloween celebrates individuals. show off the side of you that wants to cause mischief as long as you want. let yourself free to have some fun.
Halloween gives me a vibe of like, a huge party where everyone is drunk...
...even though they are not
The fall is also about horror movies. Sitting down and watching The Shining every year is as much of a tradition as watching the Rankin-Bass Christmas movies around Christmas.
Horror movies don't have to be gory to get a scare.
In fact, nowadays it feels like horror movies/ even movies in general, don't explain much.
Often you watch a movie and your left confused because nothing was explained
These are in a new category of sorts, one I like to call the "Google-After-Watching" genre
There's also the stupid horror movies you get a good laugh at, gross body-horror,
torture-porn, thrillers etc, etc.
Horror doesn't have to mean a corny chase scene of a final girl trope character running away from a bad guy in a way that if it was real, she would've knocked herself out.
it's those that have become classics.
The final-girl trope, the twist at the end, the is-this-person mentally unstable or telling the truth.
Many repeats, there may be.
There's one particular species of scare that makes me want to slap the characters, where their first mistake is innocence.
It's the "games"
The ones where the characters make a decision or a deal that they are unaware of the implications of.
where they play a game, that turns deadly.
I don't mean like games from" Saw", its a similar premise, with a game.just not the same trope I feel I want to discuss. I mean the Where you willingly make a choice, a deal, signed your soul away without asking about the following horrible ramifications kind of flick
for example. It's like a movie where these group of people get put together, for some prize or other things. an individual striking some deal to protect their family or get what they want, often tasked with the unthinkable.
when someone goes to investigate "just an old house" and find it haunted
These kinds of film always play on presumptions. The characters presume everything is ok, just have to carry out one favor, one game. These flicks almost always have foreshadowing and creepy music, to where the audience knows something is going to be horrific. The characters don't.
Why/ How can you tell its foreshadowing?
Answer: BECAUSE EVERY MOVIE DOES IT
I really got to thinking, what would happen if this happens in real life?
Not to horror movie cheesiness and tactics.
I think this way because of horror movie tactics.
The characters always seem so unaware.
Even in movies that aren't horror.
Like Jumanji
and tons of others
preying on the value of innocent misconception
That's how I came up with this Rule Of Thumb that has been instilled in me by life and watching flicks all the time:
If you can't see clearly through a window of potential opportunity, don't open it.
if someone gives me a seemingly true offer that follow with you needing to make a choice to leave or continue, without them saying what it specifically entails in the follow up?
Take the out
If someone needs to reassure you everything will be fine to get you to make a choice, and you don't know what you have to do to get what you need and/or want?
Take the out
If something is too good to be true?
Take the out.
I'm sorry but this is the world we live in.
It's a world of false promises. Some people fall victim to it. You learn from the falls. I am very ambitious and always planning ahead. Like in modern day these things happen. (aka "scamming"). So if someone tells you you can win a million dollars you press a button on your phone, don't click
I'll do the same