Scary Movies?

            I have yet to find a horror movie that can really freak me out, so I have sort of made that my movie-watching-mission. I love “scary” movies like the newer stuff by James Wan, he is incredibly talented and movies like The Conjuring and The Nun are a great representation of modern horror (The Ring deserves honorary mention but Gore Verbinski has no other strong horror movies, so The Ring is a fabulous anomaly), beautiful and well crafted, but not really scary. Looking to past horror movies, Wes Craven is one of my favorites-name almost any semi-old horror movie and it is his (except Friday the 13^th). From Craven, I think A Nightmare on Elm Street needs recast and then it would be freaky and his other stuff like Scream are fantastic representations of a good horror movie but I still have no reason to be afraid (assuming I don’t have a freaky boyfriend who murdered my mother last year, which I don’t). Alfred Hitchcock is (obviously) iconic for a good reason, but I can’t tell if his movies make me anxious because they are in black and white because it’s hard to take Norman Bates seriously enough to fear for Marion Crane’s life, let alone my own. Personally, I prefer Roman Polanski’s Rosemary’s Baby if I’m watching a 60s movie. The idea of slowly driving someone insane so that they will give birth to the antichrist is inventive and deeply upsetting, as any thriller should be. Besides Rosemary’s Baby, the only modern movie to make me anything close to scared was The Strangers because it is reasonless and brutal, and even after doing everything right, Liv Tyler can’t get her scrawny little butt out of there, and that is raw horror at it’s most twisted. But it still didn’t scare me. So, what will make me truly afraid?

         The answer, pathetically enough, is post-college coming of age movies. I think of Adult World, Reality Bites, and St Elmo’s Fire. These kinds of movies make me want to watch romcom garbage and fantasies to push future and change out of my brain forever. These movies about valedictorians, star lawyers, and artistic poets who fall off of the deep end, become suicidal and broke after doing everything right, those are the real horror movies. Blood and guts can’t make me flinch, but these indie movies have me in a state of existential crisis. Seriously, Nancy fought Freddy in her nightmares, but little does she know life after college is worse than any severely mutilated murderous pedophile. For me, an aspiring writer, to watch talented people stick their heads in ovens after they fail time and time again to get published traumatizes me deeply. Seriously, at best, my future seems to be reduced to throwing books at mentors, crying over gas station coffee, and (if I get lucky) someone adorable who is way too good for me but I never appreciated until the very moment that I decided to kiss them, and later figure out they are more talented than I will ever be.

         I say all this because I just watched this indie movie, Adult World. It’s about an aspiring poet fresh-out of college (Emma Roberts) who figures out she isn’t the best writer and is forced to work at an adult video store to make ends meet, you know, the true New Yorker’s story. I stumbled into it because Evan Peters is in it and that justifies watching it, but a simple crush has got me to this point where I am now obsessively studying what appears to be one way that my life could go. I mean, to be real I was not interested in a deep indie film when I picked it out (I was interested in Evan Peters) but I love it. It’s artistic and scary, but regardless of where my future takes me, it has helped remind me that future is subjective and there will always be something ahead to be scared of (oof).

         Okay, let me leave you with this: watch more movies, read more books, listen to more(better) music. The only way we can discover our tastes and our deep-seeded fears is by absorbing as much art and culture as we can.