♫ I'll be seeing you, in all the old familiar tropes ♫

Just did a major binge on horror movies. I must’ve watched 30 over the last 3 or 4 days, whenever it was I was last on here pissing everyone off.

I hadn’t seen a horror movie in months, maybe even a year, which isn’t like me as horror is my favorite genre of anything. I even love horror music, i.e., Primus, Bach’s organ work, funeral marches, One Direction, etc. I was bopping around Youtube looking for something to watch in bed and settled on one of those true crime forensic tv shows and it was all downhill from there.

I am not using hyperbole when I say I just got done watching, like, 30 horror movies. It may have been more. It may have been 40.

I did a balance of personal faves, old, classic horror I had somehow missed, and new horror (2008 and up). What fun I had! If I make a joke, as I am prone to do, expect it to be macabre, for my mind is twisted and gut-filled.

One thing I can say unequivocally about the modern horror movie: the influence of The Blair Witch Project cannot be discounted. Whether you thought it was great, like me, hated it or simply thought it was ok, The Blair Witch Project was an atomic bomb in the world of horror film-making. It was like fucking B.C. and A.D. shit, man. How many new horror movies are “filmed” by the actors these days? How many new horror movies are faux “documentaries”? It’s amazing what Blair Witch did for horror film-making. The idea of the actual filming being a part of the movie itself is now a trope and even a tired one at this point.

Trope. I never liked the word. I was always a “cliché” man. It’s Frenchier and fancier, like me. “Trope” sounds like a belch or a fart, like something you say “pardon me” after. I guess we could jazz it up a bit by calling it “San Tropé”. Not only would it be Frenchier and fancier, but with the “San”, it would even be holy.

Amen.

I do love the horror clichés, though, like The Guy Who Doesn’t Believe. The Guy Who Doesn’t Believe is almost always a guy: a father, a husband, a boyfriend, an older brother, and while crazy-ass shit is happening to those he loves and even himself, he’s always going “It was probably the wind!” or some such shit. He’s the guy that, in a moment of generosity, “believes that YOU believe it.”

Haha. Don’t you just wanna pop this guy in the mouth?

Then there’s the smart, hip, enlightened, wise-cracking group from the city who come out here to the sticks and look down on us hicks and our “legends”, only to later find out we were right all along as they get eaten alive by whatever it is that haunts our woods.

I totally relish that cliché

, man, let me tell ya. Every time it came on these last few days, I rubbed my hands together and couldn’t hardly wait till the snooty little bastards got slaughtered.

When done right, horror clichés are like old friends stopping by. When not done right, they’re like annoying relatives who won’t leave.

And my all time favorite, which I watched twice over the last couple of days? The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, of course. A work of singular cinematic brilliance, completely accidental, and one of the greatest movies ever made in any genre. Sometimes you throw paint against the wall and you’re just a messy asshole, and sometimes you’re fucking Jackson Pollock.

By the way, feel free to let me know your horror faves, especially indie, limited, or newer ones. I’m always on the lookout for a good laugh.