Suggested Audio Jukebox ♫

 

[1] Does It Offend You, Yeah “Attack Of The 60 ft Lesbian Octopus”

[2] Danzig “Devil’s Plaything”

[3] Voltaire “When You’re Evil”

[4] Ladytron “I’m Not Scared”

[5] The Union Underground “Turn me on Mr. Deadman”

 

Don’t want to be a dick Delores but you really could have chosen some more appropriate footwear for the occasion. No pressure love but you’re the last fertile woman on the planet and we’re kind of banking on you to keep the population ticking over. To be fair, you had no idea that a simple sweetcorn salvo would entail running the gauntlet this way, but perhaps the first clue was the flaming meteorite that touched down in your crop circle and the second was the bugged eyes and webbed phalanges. Had you watched enough fifties B-movies then your husband of fifteen years, Lionel, wouldn’t currently be bent over a haystack and preparing to be soundly probed. Try not to fret that pretty little head too much as Lionel’s still sporting that winning smile and it’ll get a darn sight wider before it flips to a grimace. But the fact remains that horror is all around us and its best friend sci-fi is always available to chip in where necessary. United they’re something of a handful and they’re not a great deal less meddlesome on their own. Here, take a look at horror engaging in a spot of performance art and decide for yourselves.

It’s the flaming hands you see. There’s another one for your notebooks Grueheads. Never traditionally a positive this one and even less affirmative when paired with glowing red eyeballs. Should you be shopping for your weekly groceries and spot a little old lady checking the loaves for the longest shelf date, then take a look at her hands before approaching and, if they’re flaming, proceed with great caution. You see, the elderly are the first to fall foul of necromancy and underestimated at our own peril. Number two on the horror hit list are members of the clergy as nobody would expect them to have their Prince Albert done and spend all their downtime listening to Godspeed You! Black Emperor so they can do the devil’s dirty work largely unchallenged. Next time you pay midnight mass a visit, take a look around at fellow members of the congregation. If over 75% of them are skeletal, then run for your lives and don’t even think of glancing back as Father O’Reilly just yelled “Hadouken!!!” and I’m reasonably assured that ain’t the name of the twelfth apostle. And you may wish to test run those hopscotch skills as Dhalsim just stuck a leg out from the pews and his athlete’s foot is truly abominable. Where are the flip-flops Dhalsim? It all could’ve been avoided with flip-flops.

So we’ve ascertained that mankind is dumb, the elderly are far too easily swayed, and Catholic priests are absolutely not to be trusted under any circumstances. But this alone doesn’t make us safe as horror comes in many guises and can strike when we least expect, whether susceptible or not. Procreation is a distinct no-no as it invariably ends in tears, particularly when engaged in out-of-wedlock. Midnight skinny dipping is also generally discouraged as over 85% of all evil is perverted and the other 15% percent are also perverted, they just don’t hang out as much. Randy little gropers the lot of ’em, if you ask me. Reportedly horror and pornography were introduced one year at the Razzies and went on to become bed fellows. And this is why we humans wear clothes you see, to fend them off or slow them down at the very least. The less the linen, the less the grinnin’. Double up on those socks, pile on those layers, and guys it might be time to start sporting those bras. I’ve already raided my seventy-three-year-old mother’s closet and I just beat the monster within to the nice little floral number.

Had I negated to mention that horror hangs out in our closet space? Did you learn nothing as a child? That’s where all the most heinous shit goes down and suddenly that turkish delight you were offered by that nice ice queen lady isn’t quite as appealing huh? Granted, it comes in both rose and lemon fragrances but it will cost you one frozen fist to the bottom. Weigh it up kiddiwinks, those succulent slabs of turkish delight all dusted in delicious on one hand, and being rectally refurbished over the back of a cold steel sled. Closets are out and I request that you cast your minds back to those confessional booths as the knuckles come into play there also if the whispered screams I heard coming from beneath the curtain are to be believed. Why do you think teenagers leave their clothes strewn across their bedroom floors? It’s because only mother is safe tackling the closet and, even then, we can’t be certain the monsters won’t get to her too. We can all trust mom right? Well that depends whether she returns from the ice cream van and pasteurized milk commences gushing from her tear ducts.

Thanks ma but I think I’ll pass on the Neapolitan. The nine month loan of your womb was much appreciated and those titties tasted grand for a while but I feel we’ve been growing apart for a while now. Had you opted for semi-skimmed then perhaps you’d be burping me at this very moment but I find lychees a peculiar enough texture, without you expressing through your eyeballs. Squirt some in a bottle in case I get thirsty later but, for now, do you know any families looking to adopt? Please don’t take it to heart mommy, seeing you cry like this is causing me considerable anguish, while the swirling spirals are beginning to curdle my sanity. No I really mean it, cut that shit out or I’ll go and get dad. What do you mean he’s busy? Well I’m sure he’d like to know what’s been going on under his own roof. The moment my sister Mindy has finished in the shower, I’m going to take her by the hand and march us both straight out of this hell house. Oh daddy dearest?

But I don’t understand, you took a poo twenty minutes ago pops, has mom been filling you up with that nasty roughage again? Hold on, that’s no poo. You lied to me father and look what you did to poor sweet defenceless Mindy. Actually, it’s not what you did to my sister that concerns me most, it’s what you’re still doing that turns my stomach. Clearly neither you or mommy can be trusted and I’m not best pleased about the company you keep either. You think I don’t know what goes on down there while I’m asleep? And do you expect me to believe that my bluebird Pete, who was just about to celebrate his first birthday for the record, choked to death on a misshapen peanut? I guess his head just fell off through over-exertion then? They sure don’t make ’em like they used to. Poppycock, I spied the whole sordid transaction through the cracks in the bannister and Pete didn’t choke to death on a peanut. It was murder I tell you, murder. You wanna know what else it was? Murder. For any Zulus amongst us, guess what else it was – Ukubulala. You know what that translates to? Murder. Here take a look at this face and tell me the first word that springs to mind. I bet it’s bloody murder.

Don’t give me manslaughter, I supposed Pete agreed to that lie down did he? It’s boulderdash and you know it. Clearly horror had a hand in this treachery and stay frosty as I reckon it may still be close-by you know. From what I hear, it hunts in packs, which means that, even if Pete had managed to escape his harsh fate, there would have been an even harsher one lurking around the very next corner. Now I’m the first to tuck into a serving of buffalo wings with Frank’s special hot sauce but I always request them boneless. Our next shady character, affectionately known as Gilda The Geek, doesn’t even wait for her order to arrive and can normally be found scavenging from kitchens for any bonus poultry that’s been left around. Be advised, her eyes may attempt to suggest that it’s nothing more than a big misunderstanding, if that’s the case, then why are my buffalo wings taking so long to come? I don’t care how much of his hot sauce Frank donates to the cause, if they attempt to palm Quorn off on me, I’ll fucking know it.

You see, they’re all at it. So what do we do then? Do we declare ourselves in a state of global emergency? Of course not as that would be playing into horror’s hands as there’s nothing that excites it more than causing widespread panic. Show a little indifference, on the other hand, and watch how annoyed it gets. The next time you’re walking down the street and a winged serpent swoops down, picks a fellow pedestrian up by the neck with its talons, and carries them off back to its nest to devour them, let out a little yawn or respond with something like “I’ve seen that one before” and watch how much your flippant comment needles them. They hate to be considered ineffectual and, the moment there’s no audience fear to feed from, they’re as harmless as little kittens. Suddenly the only work they can get is with the Wayans brothers and maybe a one-off gig on Samhain if they’re lucky. This is the only way to prevent horror from dragging us all kicking and screaming into the pits of hell. You see, Siskel and Ebert were doing us a service all along, protecting our honor by ripping the living shit out of every horror movie that emerged on the marketplace during the eighties. How do you think poor old Jason Voorhees felt after his sixth double thumbs down in swift succession? I’ll tell you how he felt.

I know what you’re thinking right now. You’re thinking that he looks rather chipper flipping burgers and perhaps he is. However, while that’s independence day covered, what about the 364 other days in the calendar year? It’s not like he can head on down to Gap and treat himself to a new pair of moleskin denims as his celebrity status and bulbous head make it impossible to fit in with large crowds. Yet the people don’t swarm to clap politely or commend him on his diverse acting range, they have only mockery on their mind and it ultimately always comes back to Manhattan. While the rabid fans were waiting on tenterhooks for him to take that bite from The Big Apple, he was too busy mooching about taking selfies to upload to his Instagram account. We don’t care if he has 100k followers on Twitter, most of whom he bought with mask royalties, we want to see him slicing and dicing teenagers in all sorts of compromising positions and going back to being that merciless momma’s boy we all grew to love. Became a laughing-stock is what he did and others had a crack at the comedy circuit too with similarly dismal results.

Take Chucky for example and please feel free to set his boots in wet cement and toss him into the East River while you’re at it. What’s so terrifying about a hunk of perished plastic whose primary attack is to piss his pants? He ain’t all that and I’d like to see how Charles Lee Ray would have coped with sliding towards the incinerator at the end of Toy Story 3. I’ll tell you what he would have done – blubbed like a bitch ass baby and perhaps tried to slip a finger into Jessie just to see if he could get a Yeehaw out of her when everybody knows that Woody has already called dibs. Just for the record, I spoke to Andy earlier on Messenger and he’s disgusted by the way. And don’t try and act all coy pardner as we all know what really goes down in that toy box once Mr. & Mrs. Potato Head remove their eyes for the night and your rendition of You’ve Got A Friend In You is wrong on many levels.

I feel like I’ve digressed enough and understand that I’m doing Freddy Krueger a disservice by not giving that joker a shout out too but time is pressing on and, while horror isn’t getting any younger, rumor has it that it’s somehow growing wiser. Could it be that the genre is about to enjoy something of a resurrection? Indie filmmakers sure think so and I’m inclined to agree that it’s on the verge of something. The problem is those suits, sitting there all high and mighty, interested only in flogging a franchise to death, waiting thirty years, then flogging it to death some more. No wonder horror is so pissed off with such pitiful representation; it was only a matter of time before it started acting out. Not that I’m trying to excuse its actions as they’re pretty much inexcusable. But all it really wants is to belong and you can’t blame it for trying. There are only so many times you can jilt a bride before she fuels up her chainsaw.

So what now then? Well I’ve decided to keep it close, where I can watch its every move, and make sure that nothing untoward is going on without our knowledge. You see, while admittedly its methods are rather underhand and it does like to throw peril at us at every turn, its as entertaining as all hell too. Few genres can prise a reaction from their audience as effortlessly as horror and, if the western can make a comeback, then there’s hope for all of us right? I’m a forty-two-year-old man with monsters in my closet and that’s fine with me. I’d rather that than the Jonas Brothers. Granted, it can have a tendency to get a little touchy-feely, but so does Uncle Clive and you don’t see him banished from family barbecues do you? It ultimately means no real harm and there are far too many senior citizens about anyhoots so what’s a few small sacrifices amongst friends? One more thing, am I in mortal danger right now? It’s behind me isn’t it? Then I guess they’re your flailing tendrils massaging my neck? Don’t lie to me Grueheads as I can simply consult the all-knowing glowing skull and it will reveal your treachery. I know how to work it you know.

Click here to read Scared Yet?