This is the first in a journal series I want to start called Love/Hate Relationship, discussing general subjects that everyone has an opinion about. I personally despise things I will discuss in this series…but I also have a sort of strange attraction to them at the same time. Hopefully, some of you will be able to relate and will feel the same way. At the very least, hopefully what I will say will make sense to you.
After reading, please let me know how you like the series, as I plan to continue it.
I would appreciate any feedback you have to offer, as long as it’s constructive.
Thank you, and enjoy.
Love/Hate Relationship #1: “Oh, the Horror!”
Today’s Love/Hate Relationship is with Horror. ANYTHING Horror: books, movies, games, whatever. What I’m going to talk about applies to all of it for me.
It’s strange to think about an author, director, or designer making something for the sole purpose of scaring those who experience it. It’s a property of making media that has never appealed to me. It just seems like a cruel thing to do, and you would have to be a cruel person to do it. But to think there’s a whole category of stuff that is meant to scare and creep people out, and that there are people who actually LIKE to view that stuff and to make it, and it surprisingly doesn’t affect them…to me, it’s very bizarre and twisted. I never understood why people flock to the theaters to see a scary movie or a scary ride, then just laugh right after screaming. I always just assumed that people who are like that just don’t have a hint of empathy in their bodies.
I guess you could say I’m not the most strong-willed person when it comes to this genre of entertainment, if you can call it that. I’m actually a pretty big wuss when it comes to horror movies and games, and being scared in real life. As long as the element of surprise is on your side, you can pretty much scare me silly.
An interesting aspect of my fear spectrum, though, is that I’m less frightened by more realistic scenarios. I didn’t bat an eye watching “Scream”, but I was panicking during the highly fabricated and over-the-top “Cabin in the Woods”. I guess it’s a measurement of control that factors in as well, feeling as though we’d have less control if – for example – an alien race came down and started killing anyone than if struggling against a normal criminal/murderer. Therefore it’s the more supernatural, not the more likely to happen, that usually gets to me.
And even though I know it’s JUST a movie, or JUST a game, my mind still gets filled with thoughts of it becoming real. I’m always left in paranoia of aliens or monsters or dolls or animatronics coming to get me and do who-knows-what, even though all I did was mind my own business and try to “entertain” myself.
Another thing I despite about Horror is that, if it really gets to you somehow, it’s hard to find a way to get it out of your mind. I could watch a scary movie in the morning and do pleasant stuff ALL DAY, then RIGHT when I go to bed, you-know-what would push itself back to the front of my mind again. As hard as you try, you can’t escape it. Then, to make matters worse, it would probably invade your dreams. I remember having a hard time sleeping after watching M. Night Shyamalan’s “Signs” back in the day, and a nightmare involving “The Iron Giant” even made something non-scary disturbing for me for a short time.
Now I’ve talked a little too much about the hate aspect of things, so you’re probably wondering…where’s the love? If I feel this strongly against Horror, why have I continued to pursue it?
In more recent years, I have begun feeling the slight fascination with the macabre that horror movie fanatics do. Sometimes it comes later, other times it’s a feeling simultaneous with the fear and paranoia. It’s the same kind of feeling that allows people to point to which horror film is the best one. Even though “Signs” initially scared me, I was still able to acknowledge that it was an amazing movie, even better than “The Sixth Sense” in my opinion. Even though “Cabin in the Woods” made my heart race frantically with its shit-hits-the-fan ending, I still acknowledge Joss Whedon’s genius in parodying clichés of the horror genre in such a way. And in some cases with horror series, despite the fear I just get fascinated with the premise and/or how well it was executed. Being able to pick apart the aspect of horror and saying what it does and doesn’t do well helps you conquer the initial fear that it stirred up, and sometimes you’ll see a gathering of people coming up with other backgrounds or endings that even make things entertaining to think about.
To give you guys a better feel of my Love/Hate Relationships here, I’m going to recount two instances of this scenario happening to me in just the past year or so: first a movie series, then a very recently released video game.
The first instance lies with the “Paranormal Activity” movie series, which is currently 5 films and growing.
For a few years I initially stayed away from the series, wanting nothing to do with the scares it will likely bring. Although, admittedly, I became a little fascinated with the “home movie” shooting style I’d seen before in films like “Cloverfield” and “District 9” (neither of which left a lasting negative impression horror-wise). One day last year, the first “Paranormal Activity” was slated to come on FX, and I decided to finally watch it with my roommate. For a majority of the film, I found it wasn’t that bad. It was mainly just tiny interesting things happening and the couple bickering at each other, until eventually things started to get worse and progress into the final shocking ending, the ending being the only really scary part of the movie for me. The first film didn’t leave too much of a lasting impression on me, and I generally liked the film’s tactic of training the viewer’s eye to look for details in the shots. I’d taken some film study classes at college, so that kind of thing interests me. The second film was slated to air a few days later, and I didn’t dislike the first one enough to bat away. I wanted more, but I eventually regretted my decision.
I rather immediately liked the second film a lot better than the first. It had more characters, more camera angles and fascinating events, more scares, AND an actual story! What at first seemed like the movie’s ending showed the family conquering the evil and returning to normal…but then, the ACTUAL ending happened. Hopefully without spoiling too much, it showed a character that the family knew very well just appearing in their home and just undoing all that they did to stop the evil, in the end taking what the evil wanted. That ending turned things around and showed that it was ultimately futile and people were powerless against this evil, and that disturbed me for a while. Just knowing that possessed people could just appear in your house without you knowing and kill you, and that the woman and the stolen child could be anywhere out there, as implied by the realistic filming style. Perhaps the most disturbing thing about these films for me is that they’re the “perfect” mix of fabricated and believable: the events are obviously fake, but they’re filmed in a way to suggest that they’ve actually happened. After film two, I was shaken up and had a few restless nights, but I was becoming fascinated with the story line and the style it’s done in. I still call “Paranormal Activity 2” my favorite in the series so far.
It took me a bit longer to get to watching “Paranormal Activity 3”, but I was finally able to watch it this past spring thanks to a free trial of Amazon Prime. For SOME reason, I decided to watch it in the dead of night, likely to go to bed soon after it was complete. At least I kept the lights on. Being a prequel to the other two films and meant to explain them, 3 was immediately more fascinating, the demon possessing everyone now portrayed as the girls’ imaginary friend. Interesting camera tactics, such as one put on a swivel in the living room / kitchen area, made for some great creepy scenes that I really enjoyed. A little less than halfway through, though, shit began to hit the fan a lot sooner than before. Unlike the controlled bursts of nighttime events in the previous movies, things were being THROWN around in this movie, and during the day no less! During these I was still relatively fine, though…but I think I’m STILL scarred by the ending of this one. To flee the events happening at their home, the family goes to spend the night at a relative’s. However, they actually jumped out of the frying pan and into the fire. It’s discovered that there’s an entire cult of these possessed people, not just one or two, and a couple family members end up getting killed in gruesome ways right before your eyes.
It’s terrible thinking about what leads up to these events, and just how easily they could happen. The first three films portray it as though you’re screwed the moment you’re bitten by the demon; you get possessed and there’s no way back, and even no real successful way to stop it from happening. While the first three films recalled events strictly within this family, I know that the last two released ones branch out to basically going after anyone. So…I don’t really want to go through that. I don’t need that on my conscience. As a result, I’ve stopped at “Paranormal Activity 3” for the time being. I’ve realized that the series is going to continue making desperate attempts to outdo its previous instalments, going more over-the-top than before each time. As 3 was already ridiculous at times, I dread just how far the series goes.
That being said, the second and third films truly fascinate me with their awesome camera tactics in the beginning, their progressive scares, and their ultimate frightening endings. I love how the films are executed, whether they give me nightmares or not, and I urge those who stopped watching after the first boring film to return and give the next two a try! Who knows, you might like them a whole lot more like I did!
The second instance I’d like to share is a VERY recent one, just taking place over the past few days. It’s a phenomenon that’s been catching fire around the internet, and I’m sure a lot of you reading this have experienced it as well:
The indie-developed video game Five Nights at Freddy’s.
I first found out about the game through a piece of fanart done by someone on my FA watchlist by the name of Partial. It was simply a bust of her fursona turned animatronic with the title “STAY OUT OF PIRATE’S COVE”, the description reading “The guilty party is aware of what they’ve done”. Of course someone just HAD to provide a link to the game’s page, and of course I just HAD to take a look, despite comments made on the picture likened to “No, why’d you do that, I need sleep tonight!”. On the game’s page I found out about its premise, which was both fascinating and horrifying, and I saw a brief montage of gameplay. I didn’t find out a whole lot about the gameplay from that video, though, so more bad decisions and disturbing fascination led me to YouTube, where I discovered the actually very popular user Markiplier and his gameplay videos (silver lining). The first video in his Freddy’s series showed me all I needed to know about the game, and all the game needed to do to scare me. I found out about the animatronics’ faulty programming that makes them think you’re the endoskeleton frame that’s supposed to be inside one of the suits, and that they intend to put you in one already full with an endoskeleton, which would kill you. It’s not exactly malicious intent, as they don’t know any better…but they also can’t be reasoned with, so it’s going to happen if they get you.
Since the first night discovering the game, I wasn’t able to sleep in my room. I was afraid of the complete darkness and complete silence, knowing that in the game it meant Freddy’s eye lights coming on right outside the left door and his seemingly innocent music turning disturbing in its new context. Then, he would sneak up on you and pop up screeching from the bottom of the screen, and you’d be done. So, I avoided the darkness and silence then, and I still am. I found a simple solution by sleeping on the couch and keeping the television on very low, just so it’s barely making sound. Now that I’m back in my dorm room, where my bedroom and living area are kind of one in the same, I can just sleep in my bed while leaving the television on. Its alternating lights and the slight sounds have been enough to keep my paranoia at bay and my sleep uninterrupted. And the absolutely astonishing thing about this scenario is that, in about the five nights (heh) that I’ve now known about this game, it has not invaded my dreams in the slightest. I haven’t even had nightmares at all in this time! Despite all my paranoia when I’m awake at night, when I fall asleep everything is peaceful. And I obviously don’t have to worry about anything during the day, because in the game you just have to last until 6 a.m.
Mark’s first video was enough to leave me in paranoia, but I discovered the next day that he had a few more in his list. Did I need to watch them? No, absolutely not. Did I watch them though? Shamefully, yes. Fortunately, though, pretty much all of the game’s gimmicks were shown off in Mark’s first video, so it was mainly just more of the same. It only kept the insecurity going, not strengthening it. It was also on this day that I started noticing more people on FA doing fanart of the game, one of them being a recently obtained friend of mine who’s also in my watchlist. On my friend’s picture, someone posted a link to a wiki article regarding the game presenting a new theory about what goes on before its events. This theory brought up the game’s backstory of 5 children being murdered back behind the restaurant, supposedly by a security guard, and that the children are now possibly dead inside the 5 animatronics (the 4 regular ones and a supposed Golden Freddy) and haunting them to life. While this sure seems creepy and all, what this theory also states is that the animatronics actually only want to get revenge on the security guard that murdered them. This comforted me a bit, as I’m not a security guard in the slightest (sorry if you are X3). Thanks to a couple more friends, I have now been exposed to other portrayals, canon and non-canon (mostly non-canon), of different motives for the animatronics, different aftermaths for the player, and many other things that are overall just turning the premise of Freddy’s into much more of a light-hearted and comforting idea. One in particular that I like was from the friend who posted the fanart before, as he had become rather obsessed with the game, even more obsessed than me! He was especially interested in Foxy, the mischievous animatronic who peeks out of Pirate Cove and dashes at the player if not enough attention has been paid to him. (Those who know the game may have noticed that Pirate Cove is no longer operational at the restaurant, reason possibly being that Foxy was responsible for the game’s mentioned “Bite of ‘87” in which a child was killed by an animatronic. Yes, I’ve done my homework.) My friend liked to think that Foxy just wanted to be liked and acknowledged again after his incident, and that if he captured someone he would innocently recruit them into his pirate crew, which he used to do with the children (non-canon). Our conversations have gone into more light-hearted scenarios of Freddy becoming a manager elsewhere, Chica becoming a cook, Bonnie forming a popular band, and so on.
All of these have made me feel so much better about Freddy’s, and I thank my dear friends for their support and their company. Just seeing the rather enormous following that this little indie game has developed in such a short time, and seeing all the wonderful ideas they come up with is astounding. So, even though I’m still rather non-stop thinking about Five Nights at Freddy’s, a lot of the time it’s not in a horrifying way.
While I’m technically still trying to get over this game, I may actually come back to this journal and add to this section at a later date, if anything necessary to my point comes up. But for now, I think this section is fairly complete.
So, these are my stories of love and hate regarding the Horror genre.
I get caught up in its great execution and unique premises…just not the absolute terror and restless nights that result from it. And while I can find well-done things with great premises in other genres, there’s just some special thing about finding it in this one that keeps it around for a lot longer.
Now you might be thinking I’m a total wuss after reading this, and you might be right, but I’m sure there must be SOMETHING that gets to others the way these things have gotten to me. I’m sharing an experience that hopefully we all feel at some point, as it’s rather unusual and fascinating.
Please feel free to share your own Horror experience in the comments section below!
And remember, the activity has begun and be sure to close the doors only if it’s absolutely necessary >:3