On Good and Evil
I have entered a completely catatonic state. My synapses have stopped rerouting and responding - I am a brainless Zombie, I crave flesh - or pizza. In fact, pizza would be really fucking nice right now.
The truth is - at least at this point - that the jug of red wine, the flask of whiskey, and all of the pot has completely caught up with me. I might as well be functionally retarded.
It’s currently 4:45AM - I’ve been awake for fifteen hours, and I still have another seven hours and fifteen minutes ahead of me. I’m confined to a plastic chair, with this, tiny, red, and ridiculously uncomfortable cushion amidst a classy, rustic, 1930’s-esque movie theater. This year is my second pilgrimmage to this theater - The Music Box - where I parttake in yearly 24 hour marathon of B-Movies. The mindless explosions, blood-thirsty zombies, and (at least in the case of this year) distressingly ugly killer babies, that vaguely resemble the baby from the 1990’s show ‘Dinosaurs.’
But right now - in my mentally handicapped state. I am thinking of philosophy. A very dangerous thing to consider at this point, but I’m too drunk not to do it anyway.
My thoughts are something like this: Earlier in the night Pat Wilkinson told me that when Kubrick was writing the screenplay to The Shining he only consulted Steven King (the author of the original novel) once. Calling him up on the phone, only to ask “Do you believe that horror and science fiction movies are optimistic because the condone the idea of an afterlife?”
Now, since King was just an abusive alcoholic, coke-head at the time (he’d get hit by a bus pretty soon and then go to rehab - unless if I got my timeline messed up), he didn’t really take Kubrick’s question seriously, in fact he probably just said “Sure,” snorted a line off a hooker, and then wrote 32 more novels. Leaving Kubrick to go about his eccentric ways with the screenplay until we got what is considered a horror classic.
But it’s an interesting question.
I mean, at this point - in the theater at least - I can pretty much feel my own mortality. I see people getting decapitated, with splashes of bright red blood splashing all over the floors and walls and I can kind of imagining that happening to me. I’ve read that when the head is severed from the rest of the body - it contains enough oxygen that the victim will still be able to go about his cognitive functions for at least three seconds. Think about that for a second: A Zombie, Cannibal, Puerto Rican, She-Woman runs at you with a chain saw. You fuck it up and get decapitated. But your body doesn’t really even register the disconnection of the head from torso. I mean you probably could feel the skin on your neck ripping apart like creased paper for a moment- but mostly, you just feel your head sail through the air like a volleyball while you think “fuck, I should have ducked.” Your torso and limbs then tumble on to the ground and your bowels empty themselves. There might be a ringing in your ears, but you wouldn’t really notice - it’s too fast to feel any fear. Your head descends to the ground and BOOM, you hit the ground and you’re dead, completely lifeless.
It’s interesting. I hadn’t thought of anything like it until 3:30AM when Halloween 3: Season of the Witch started. It wasn’t a good movie by any means. In fact, I pray that nobody has actually seen this abhorred abomination of a feature film in it’s entirety - so, to save you the trouble and give you the rundown on it.
Halloween 3 is known for being the only Halloween movie that has absolutely nothing to do with the rest of the movies. That means no Michael Myers. Instead we get a movie about a billionaire tycoon that runs a Halloween mask factory with his evil cybernetic-android henchmen, whom - in turn - have harvested a chunk of the Stonehenge monument and taken it to their secret underground lair. After they grind the monument up into powder and cast a magic spell (or some shit) on it, they put it in pins on the back of the masks, and distribute bulk amounts of the masks all over the United States so that - when the factory runs it’s incredibly successful Halloween commercial, the pins will cause the children wearing the masks to explode, die, and then empty snakes and ticks from their sinuses. It’s kind of hilarious - in theory.
But in execution, it’s fundamentally retarded - in every sense of the word.
But it certainly has kept me thinking. This evil billionaire tycoon (who is so evil, that he might as well be twisting his mustache and saying “Neeeigh, mwahahha!” every other line) just wants a mass execution. And although his philosophy - like most of the movie - is fucking stupid, it makes you wonder. Is mass murder a terrible thing or a completely hilarious cycle of violence? And if that seems offensive: As a species what makes us so special to begin with anyway?
According to the evil billionaire tycoon (and most B-Movie villains), we’re pretty fragile. Which is what gives you the ‘fear’ while watching the movie, because in real life - as a species - we precive ourselves to be somewhat indestructible. According to B-Movies - we’re pretty dumb, but in real life we think we’re above other animals because we can produce cognitive thoughts, form words, drive fast cars, and fuck for pleasure. Watching a B-Movie is sort of a way to realize how fragile humanity is - although usually with way hotter chicks.
Althought, during this marathon, it seems - to me at least - that in the grand scheme of this functioning universe, the human race is just a glorified ant colony with a really bad superiority complex, waiting on whim of a madman or bad science to finally hold the great magnifying glass into the sun to incinerate us all.
So, that brings us back to Kubrick’s real question. Why do we accept so much violence, death, and perversion in the form of B-Movie? Is it because it reveals our fragility? Or is it because it reveals our fragility while presenting optimism? Think about it: Could horror and science fiction movies actually be optimistic because they condone the idea of an afterlife?
Which - in turn, brings us to King’s Answer, “Sure.”
I mean, I accept these mindless on-screen deaths because, if they’re at the hands of demons and other evil spirits, that actually means that there has to be a good side - a spiritual side - right? It gives me something to believe in and hope for - for the most part.
I accept these on screen deaths because I know that I’m a delicate dude - and there are many morbid things that could end my life - but in this retarded state, bombarded with 24 hours of movies that present death as something either grotesque or strangely funny, and with all this whiskey and all of these jugs of red wine - I am comfortable. A Zombie outbreak could come and wipe this planet clean. Michael Myers might try to break my neck. I could become a Werewolf or be raped by the invisible man, but at least I know - right now - that with everything inherently evil, there is something inherently good.
Filed under: Personal Entry, Season 2, WTF