The Horror....The Horror......

It's impossible for words to describe what is necessary to those who do not know what horror means. Horror... Horror has a face... and you must make a friend of horror. Horror and moral terror are your friends. If they are not, then they are enemies to be feared.

There are a lot of things that don't really make sense in my life. Like..... snow, and meatless chicken nuggets, the lightbulb inside of a refrigerator, and people who don't read books. These things are quite possibly trivial to you but they keep me up at night, laughing in my ear and taunting me with their devilish confusion. Today however I was met with something that makes perfect sense, yet for some reason I still can't wrap my head around it.

Apocalypse Now is the perfect metaphor for life and also....for being a horror fan. I suppose it isn't that much of a stretch what with "The Horror! The Horror!" being the tagline and all but as someone who has a strange dread surrounding most "war" movies, you should believe me when I say that I find this very confusing and extremely exciting.

I was never the biggest fan of Heart of Darkness. I found it dry and somehow less captivating than other novels I was forced to read in order to receive 3.00 credits towards my college diploma. Therefore, the idea of Apocalypse Now was one that peaked my interest. I knew I was somehow supposed to think that Heart of Darkness was a masterpiece, so maybe, just maybe Apocalypse Now could finally convince me. It did of course, but it also widened my eyes to something that I like to call brilliance.

This brilliance was especially captured when Marlon Brando delivered his famous monologue about the horror, crying like a grandmother and the importance of remembering it forever. It was like a giant lightbulb went off in my brain. THIS is what I should have tattooed on my face so that when people ask me why I like horror movies so much I can just stare at them.

I like horror movies so much because they used to scare the shit out of me. They used to force me into uncomfortable positions of shielding both my eyes and ears against their terror. Then one day something happened. I realized that embracing the horror and facing the horror was what made the fear go away.

This made sense not just when watching horror movies but in the rest of my life as well. I'm what or was, what you would call a scaredy cat. I had a hard time doing much of anything without crying or dragging some unfortunate friend or family member along with me. The thing is though, life IS scary. Life is horrific but until you face it and recognize it, you'll never be able to accept it and you will keep running away from it. Yikes I sound like a preacher now but whatever, you can blame it on Francis Ford Coppola.

Anyways. I wanted you to know that really, really shitty and awful things happen sometimes. But that's life. If you've seen horror look you straight in the face then you've probably already had this revelation hit you before. Marlon Brando's monologue is still one of the best things that's ever happened. It means so much. But it especially makes me smile when I think about all those people who like to give horror fans a bad name. All those people that make those disgusted faces when I talk about how excited I get from watching horror movies. And all those people, the same people really that laugh when I tell them that there is such a thing as a good horror movie.

You must make a friend of horror. So that is why today I will share with you all my friends. Just to prove that what Apocalypse Now is saying is true and completely awesome.

Blame it on the Creeper

Jeepers Creepers and I have a very complicated relationship. He's my friend (and lover when I've had too much of the wine) but more often than not, we seem to get into these insanely ridiculous fights. The ones where you just keep bringing up these trite points that have nothing to do with anything but then again when you think about it, it's those moments and those trite points that really come to make so much sense. I had one of those moments yesterday after watching 30 minutes of Jeepers Creepers. I realized that even though Jeepers Creepers can be entertaining when it wants to be, the film and I will never be great friends because the Creeper makes no sense in the grand scheme of life. And it really messes with me!

Let's lay down the facts first.

1. The Creeper is a demon who wreaks havoc in rural Florida every 23rd year for 23 days.

2. He wreaks havoc by killing people and taking their body parts.

3. He uses these body parts to form parts of his own body.

4. He can smell fear.

So that's the basic layout of the Creeper but anyone who has actually watched the movie can hopefully join me in screaming WHY DOES HE DRIVE A TRUCK? and also other stuff that makes no sense.

Listen, The Creeper. If you're some big crazy demon who can fly and do all sorts of scary demon stuff---why are you blending into society by driving an old beat up truck and wearing man clothes? The Creeper goes from being an all powerful, unwoundable (I made that word up) beast to a paranoid serial killer who feels the need to burn the evidence of his killings to the ground. I mean really? Was he worried they were going to find some incriminating evidence? Line him up for identification and give him the death sentence?

(Oh wait I meant INDESTRUCTIBLE. Silly me. Woundable...)

I just don't get it.

So because I like bullet points and/or numbered lists of unimportant "facts" I will spell out my frustrations right now.

1. How did The Creeper learn how to drive?

I hate to break it to you but learning how to drive can be difficult. At least it was for me when I found out that driving up a hilly stone driveway means holding onto the wheel tight and not hitting a tree. I just have a really hard time believing that The Creeper woke up one day after 23 years, got into a truck and started driving.

He's got crazy demon hands and demon feet---and sure he's an erractic driver but have you seen his control? That truck cannot have great suspension but man, does he know how to manuever it. Yup. Like I said. Not buying it.... The Creeper.

2. A Vanity Plate!?

As if that wasn't enough, The Creeper also feels the need to get a vanity plate for his demon truck. Again, I find it hard to believe that either A. The demon stumbled upon a vanity plate that perfectly spelled out his M.O. or that B. He went to the DMV to register this vanity plate or C. The license plate randomly spelt out those letters and he just got extremely lucky.

3. Why ruin your life's work?

I still will never understand why after discovering that Darry had been in his secret lair, The Creeper panics and torches the place. It's not like the police would have found it and then been on the look out for a crazy demon. No, they would be on the look out for a serial killer who was crazy. Trust me The Creeper, you would not be a suspect because to everyone except Darry--you do not exist.

Plus, why would you willingly get rid of your Sistine Chapel of hell? Actually, while we're on the subject---why was he turning his victims into a cruel work of preserved grossness anyways? Didn't he just need their body parts? Why save them? I DONT GET IT. He's not a serial killer, so he doesn't need to keep trophies.

4. Why does he even need to take people's body parts?

He seems to be doing pretty fine while looking like a big scary demon. Not to mention, that his eyes look fine to me--why does he need Darry's eyes? Will his demon body expire for good if he doesn't take the body parts of humans? Will GOD win if he does not absorb other peoples body parts and take them for his own? Did they explain that and I was too busy laughing while imagining The Creeper waiting in line at the DMV?

5. BLAH BLAH BLAH

Right. Well....anyways like I said, I enjoy Jeepers Creepers from time to time but ultimately because it makes no sense-- I can't ever make peace with it. It's too bad because we had a pretty solid history too.

But come on you guys. Does this movie really make any sense to any of you?

I'll tell you what it seems like to me. It seems like the creators originally took this idea of a crazy and sick serial killer who brutality killed people, took body parts and then tacked them up on the ceiling. Somewhere along the line, they were like WAIT, let's make him a DEMON. And then the ridiculousness of Jeepers Creepers was born. They didn't bother to change all the elements that would have made sense had The Creeper been a real person and then everyone was like ahahah BLAH BLAH BLAH we made a movie let's get drunk!

Okay that was mean. I like Jeepers Creepers, I do. But I'm not afraid to tell it like it is. It makes no sense. And that's all I have to say about that.

Absentia: The Review Where I Tell You NOTHING About the Movie.

You know those movies that people always tell you to watch but they won't tell you why? The ones that apparently hold some grain of wisdom so large and powerful that knowing anything about it beforehand might significantly ruin your chances of actually taking something away from it? Absentia is one of those movies which makes me severely question the necessity of writing about it.

I finished watching Absentia this morning after turning it off the night before in the fear of being woken up in the middle of the night by strange bug noises. Don't look at me like that I had the house to myself! Upon completion, my mind was suddenly filled with the kind of panic that only a horror movie blogger could have---what the hell am I going to write about?

Hence this incredibly pointless blog post where I try to convince you to see Absentia without actually telling you anything about it. Although I'm fairly certain that I've said too much already.

So here's the deal. If you enjoy watching movies that aren't straightforward in their apparent horror gene and if you like feeling really unsettled for no reason then you should definitely watch Absentia. It's a horror movie unlike any that I've seen. It made me feel so unbelievably tense, confused, scared and hopeless. It made me question the very idea of horror movies in the first place and most importantly it made me realize yet again that Doug Jones is probably some kind of alien from planet creepy face and body.

It's not even like there is this crazy overdose of jump scares or shock either. The tension that you feel amounts from extremely simple concepts that do just enough to send tiny shivers down your spine. The movie also utilizes the idea that a structure or piece of scenery can be one of the scariest characters out of the whole story. And most importantly it plays with the idea of loss, devastation and puppies in trash bags.....wait I mean....of drawing your own conclusions.

There are no answers in Absentia. For many this will be the hardest thing to swallow and perhaps for some people this will be the biggest fault of the film. Those people suck. No they do, they really do. Because if Absentia teaches us anything, it's that there will never be an end to what we imagine. What does it all mean? It means whatever you want it to mean. No seriously, what does it mean? SHUT UP. Just watch it. You'll thank me later.