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.