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zwolanerd

I guess I just like liking things

If I replaced one of my hands with a chainsaw I still wouldn't be anywhere near as cool as this.

If I replaced one of my hands with a chainsaw I still wouldn’t be anywhere near as cool as this.

This past weekend, a friend and I went to see the new Evil Dead movie, mostly because Bruce Campbell is pretty much daring people to do so. While I think it’s a neat turn of events that the people who made the original are supporting/producing the remake/reboot, I really need to stick with my gut on these decisions.

It’s time I faced facts: I don’t like horror movies any more.

It shouldn’t surprise me, really. I was never that big into them to start with. Sure, I was really into the Nightmare on Elm Street series for a long time, but Freddy… I don’t know. Were people ever afraid of Freddy after the first movie?  People  not in the movie, I mean. And, really, when you’re talking Freddy, Jason, and Michael Myers, you’re only scratching the surface of a very deep well of horror, most of which is so so far removed from the Big Three there that it would surprise you, and not in fun jump-back-from-the-mirror ways.

Really, there’s scary, there’s gory, and there’s gross. The scariest movie I’ve ever seen is Alien, but I’m classifying “scary” differently from “instilling dread,” which movies like We Need to Talk About Kevin do. It’s a “monsters or aliens” versus “actual humans” thing for me. I’m not likely to run into a xenomorph any time soon, but every person I meet on a daily basis could be Norman Bates.  I don’t mean that in the cynical sense where I believe everyone is a psychopath, of course, it’s just that you wouldn’t necessarily know if that person in the IKEA with you was one by sight alone. Xenomorphs you can totally tell by looking, especially under the lighting at IKEA.

Seeing this new Evil Dead movie (classification: gory and gross) this weekend made me consider the previous entries, as you would expect it to. And I have to be honest: I don’t really like the first two, and I never really did. I appreciate them because of their place in nerd history, and really enjoy reading about how the first one was made and about The Raimi brothers and Bruce being buddies for so long, and of course Bruce himself is all kinds of awesome – I just don’t like the actual movies. Now, I love Army of Darkness. But it traded gore for humor, so I’m pretty sure that’s why. I speculate that most people who remember the Evil Dead movies fondly are actually remembering Army of Darkness fondly and the first two just sort of attach themselves to the memories. Yes, Evil Dead 2 has moments of humor, but Army of Darkness goes full-on — which is why horror fans don’t like it as well as Evil Dead and Evil Dead 2. I’d guess most of them would like the newest entry.

I haven’t even talked about the torture horror stuff like Saw and Hostel, because, man, do I need to?  I’ll admit to seeing the first Saw movie and being intrigued by it, but that was mostly due to Cary Elwes being in it. I’ve had zero interest in seeing any of the followups, but I have read the synopsis…es? of them. No thanks. And no thanks to Hostel or any of the rest of them.

I will admit to enjoying Cabin in the Woods thoroughly, though. Like, unbelievably so. The things it had to say about the horror genre were equal parts interesting and awesome, and I firmly believe it changes every horror movie ever, both before and after it, and that’s all I’ll say about it because I don’t want to ruin anything for you.  That said, I have a friend who hated it, like passionately. And I will also admit that my second viewing of it wasn’t as enjoyable.  I was able to catch more details and appreciate some things more, but didn’t enjoy it as much overall as I had the first time, which just kinda blew me away, really.

I won’t go so far as to say I’m completely done with every horror movie ever, but I’m probably 98% done. i don’t know what it would take for me to want to see another one, but I’ll let you know if it happens. I did watch Bela Lugosi’s Dracula (1931) not too long ago, and I thought that was pretty sweet.

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