Last night as I was sitting in Snapper Creek, and whole bunch of urban hispters came in. There were three wasp waisted, rhinestone encrusted jeans spackled, stiletto heel tottering girls in the group. The guys were in the geek chic category, but the girls were Cosmo material all the way.


I turned to the Amazon's boyfriend, the Big Bad, and said, "I need a scope rifle." What I really wanted was some slavering hell beast to eat them. And not eat them in any slow and unoriginal way.


The wish fulfillment aspect of horror films is hard to overlook. Most viewers went to House of Wax to see Paris Hilton die. They were looking for the same satisfaction I was seeking in that bar. I tend to watch horror films where the victims are college students because it is a cathartic experience for me. My hostility towards college students is purged in, at best, a constructive fashion or, at worst, a neutral and passive expression.


Some villians overtly aknowledge that they are persecuted or punished for expressing the violent impulses that lie within our own psyches (Max in The Last Horror Movie, John Doe in Se7en), and in his essay "Why Literature?" Mario Vargas Llosa indicates that the longevity of sadistic authors, like the Marquis de Sade, is because those authors capture the readers id impulses towards violence.

The "moral" theory of horror films, that the "rules" of survival echo judeo-christian ethics, has been tossed around for quite a while. Scream stated these rules as:
1. Don't Have Sex
2. Don't Drink
3. Don't Do Drugs.*


However, considering the villianous treament of characters steeped in judeo-christian fanaticism (Carrie, Se7en, The People Under the Stairs, Neighborhood Watch), it is hard to accept that these films are an underhanded way of pitching morals to the jaded youth of America.

When I was at NYCHFF, I began to develop an alternative theory to the moral model. The majority of horror filmmakers are male and to boot, although they are some of the sweetest nicest guys, I'm fairly sure most of them weren't that popular in high school. Who were the popular kids? The athletes, the cheerleaders, the "beautiful" people. Of course, the "beautiful people" are the ones who are having sex, drinking, and doing drugs-while the rest of us were at doing our homework or watching Joe Bob Briggs or considering how amazingly depressing it is to grow up in Storrs CT.


So the death of characters who indulge in these drives shouldn't be taken as reinforcement of judeo-christian ethics but rather as simply another facet of wish fulfillment. Particularly the deaths of pretty young girls or happy couples who represent the unattainable goals of the filmmaker's youth. The success of these films indicates that audience identifies with these desires on an unconscious level, and the indulgence of these films is a cathartic way of releasing the repressed rage and frustration of being unable to have/be these characters.


Such a theory also might explain why girls don't like horror films as much. Who wants to work that hard to fulfill a role only to watch it be ridiculed and destroyed?


In words of Joel Robinson, so what do you think, sirs?

*Williamson ignored the non-moral rules: 1. Don't go into the attic/cellar
2. Don't go in the closet
3. Don't go in the water, even a shower
4. Don't split up
5. Don't back into a room