Ghostbusters

The last piece we were asked to look at for my RIG Horror class is Ghostbusters. I am no stranger to this film. I saw it first when I was a little kid. In fact I grew up watching the Ghostbusters TV cartoon every Saturday morning. And yes that was a thing, and yes I loved it even though they turned Slimer into a weird ghostly side kick instead of a poltergeist. I was a kid. that's my excuse and I'm sticking with it.

Like with the last reading I'm not quite sure that I would consider this horror. For me it's too silly and more of a comedy than a horror. I saw it on the list and I was like "What..." (Hear this in minion voice). I guess it could fall under haunting, for obvious reasons. Sure there are ghosts, and such but there are no real horror elements. For me placing this film in with horror is like saying Shaun of the Dead in horror. Both are more comedy than horror in my opinion.

I do genuinely enjoy that in the film they employed science to find, trap, and contain ghosts. I think it's really the only movie with haunting of any kind that attempts to contain the entities. The others all attempt to drive them off, damn them to hell, or is some form cast them out. Not Ghostbusters. They think hmm, lets catch all these ghosts and keep them in a tank in the office like ectoplasm filled goldfish or something. Now tell me that's not a comedy. In case you needed further proof that this film is a comedy the final big bad is a giant marshmallow man. That's a right  a giant marshmallow. How on earth is a giant marshmallow scary.

To prove marshmallows are not scary I give you Marshmallow Murder. For no other reason than Marshmallows are funny and not scary. 

Steve!!! See not scary. Not even a little bit.

So I love the movie. I will always love the movie. It's funny and reminds me of my childhood in so many ways. As a closer for the semester I think it fits me perfectly though. I enjoy comedic ghosts, and I love Bill Murray. But at the end of the class I am and always will feel the same about ghosts, and ghost stories. "I ain't afraid of no ghost," (Reitman).

Works Cited

Ghostbusters. Dir. Ivan Reitman. Perf. Dan Aykroyd, & Bill Murray. 1984. DVD.

A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens

This week we got to read a great Victorian era story by Charles Dickens A Christmas Carol. I was actually really excited to re read this story because I haven't read this since I was little. My mom used to read this to me very Christmas, a few pages at a time before bed every night. I think the first time she read this to me I was 6 or seven years old. And I loved it. Which probably explains a lot about me and my love of Gothic and Victorian fiction.

I'm not going to do this post the way I normally do. Generally I talk about what I like and don't like about this, but today I am just going to talk about it a little bit because it's such a wonderfully layered story for being so short.

The first thing I want to talk about is the first line of the story. "Marley was dead to begin with," (Dickens, 16). That may be the single best first line in ever. I freaking love it. You know right off the bat what this story is about. Dead folks, lots and lots of dead folks. Well played Dickens well played.

A lot of the reasons I love this time period of fiction is because of the love of language and words that is present. To put it bluntly, no one writes like that anymore. And I'm pretty sure I know the reason. The period is characterized by repetition or the same or similar words, the tangents, and the references to Shakespeare, that characterized the genre and time period. They are all things that have fallen out of favor or a frowned upon in current writing practice. I know because I have been dinged on several of these areas in my own work. But when this era is my influence and style I think I may be existing in the wrong genre perhaps. The most obvious repetition in the book is in the very first chapter. We get "There is no doubt that Marley was dead," (Dickens, 16) or some variation of that over and over through out the first chapter. I find it funny that this book is held up as great literature but this sort of repetition or word echoes are so chastised in current writing. It doesn't seem fair to me as in my opinion I feel it is beautiful writing regardless of time period. And I feel like it sets the mood.

The flip side of this story being a shining example of it's time period is that it comes off a morality tale...a heavily Christian morality tale. If you're a Christian you may not even notice. But if you were to remove that element of the story there would be nothing except an angry old rich guy who never changes. I'm not saying this is bad, I'm just noting it because for me it became painfully obvious that's what this was. It's less (if at all) about haunting and more about telling a morality tale about not being a jack-A. Label it accurately people.

I'm still not quiet sure why I had to read this story for a genre in horror class...it's not horror...it just isn't. Victorian, yes. Gothic, you betcha (fog much?). Morality tale, absolutely. But horror...not by a long shot. I mean consider that this story has been adapted for children a hundred times. By Disney and Jim Hansen. My personal favorite being The Muppets Christmas Carol. I hardly think that it would have been adapted for children if it were horror.  Sure he's haunted by ghost but in no way is it horror. If anything it's a ghostly shaming.

I'm not even sorry. Enjoy this song from The Muppets Christmas Carol.

Works Cited

Dickens, Charles. The Christmas Carol. London: Simon & Schuster, 2013. E-Book.

The Exorcism of Emily Rose

This week in class we got to read The Exorcism of Emily Rose. A paranormal courtroom drama based on supposedly true events in the life of a young woman named Emily Rose. This is not my first time watching this movie, in fact I didn't have to buy a copy because I already had one. I'm a fan of one of the main actresses so of course it was already in my collection. I've seen it a couple of times but I re-watched it so that I would have specific things to talk about for this post. 

What I Liked:

Jennifer Carpenter:

Okay, so I am a huge Jennifer Carpenter fan from her days on Dexter as Dexter's foul mouthed sister Debra Morgan. I really just loved that character. Rarely do women get to be the foul mouth, and not only was Debra a foul mouth she had some of the best one liners and creative cursing I have every heard and enjoyed. She made me laugh. So yeah I watched this movie the first time because I liked Jennifer and she didn't disappoint me. She was excellent in this film in her portrayal of a woman who is definitely afflicted with something (more on that later). She's mad brilliant and I love her in this film...but I'm not going to lie I kind of missed the foul mouth. And I will always love her as Debra best. If you want to see what I am talking about and you haven't seen Dexter watch this clip here (but free warning it's fairly profane), and watch Dexter on Netflix. It's awesome and Jennifer is awesome in it.

A couple Debra non profane moments for your enjoyment. 

The Demon Eyes/Great Visual Effects:

I also really enjoyed the special effects in this film. From the demon eyes that seemed to leak black goo to the awesome make up they did on Jennifer to show her deteriorating state. I felt that it was really well done and didn't seem to over the top compared to what we've seen in movies like The Exorcist films were. They seemed plausible and realistic...well except the demon eyes. Those where just awesome.

The Scientific Approach to Possession:

Not that anyone is surprised at this point but I loved the scientific approach to this movie. My little scientific heart skipped a beat when I first watched it. I'm a big fan of trying to disprove this sort of thing. That said there are some glaring problems with this movies science. First of all the one doctor claims he would treat her with ECT more commonly known as electroshock therapy. Here's the problem with that: ECT is used only by consent and has not been used on psychosis since the 70's. It's actually used only for major depressive disorder now and never with out full consent. If they were going to use that they  should have set this back when that ECT was still used for that. Just the same I liked the effort but they should have done their research before they used that.

Accurate Depiction of SIB, Rigidity, and Destruction of Property

I really enjoyed the accurate depiction of the ailments that Emily Rose suffered. The postures and behaviors of actress Jennifer Carpenter where spot of for these sorts of manifestations of behavior. First of all I love the pure physicality of the actress. Second I work with kids who exhibit several of these behaviors and she freaking nailed it. The frozen rigid poses (I actually see this regularly), the SIB, the destruction of property, they nailed those to. To someone who doesn't work with people who do these sorts of things regularly then I'm sure it could be seen as demonic, for me I saw it as accurate portrayal of mental illness. Around 51 minutes into the film Emily Rose is frozen on the floor in a perfect representation of a behavior I have seen represented in real life as recently as this week. It was so accurate I wanted to clap. Sure it's a weird thing to enjoy but when there are so many bad representations of these behaviors out there, when you see a good one you applaud the pains they went to make it perfect.

The blackout contacts make this seem way scarier than it actually is in real life. But still awesome. 

Ending Quote:

"Once You've looked into the darkness, I believe you carry it with you the rest of your life" (Derrickson). Need I say more? That's a brilliant line and I love it. They did an excellent job with dialogue in this film in not only rang true but had a lot of profound moments. I'm not spiritual, nor religious but I really appreciated the way the words where crafted in this film. They were well thought out and meaningful. The above quote just happens to stand out to me as possibly the best one.

What I Didn't Like:

Based On A True Story:

Can we not? The film starts with "This film is based on a true story," (Derrickson) and every time I see those words I swear my ass twitches. All it took was a simple google search to find out that one Emily Rose doesn't exist, Father Moore doesn't exist, the names are pure fiction. The movie is influenced by supposed real events that occurred to Anneliese Michel in 1976, the priest is an amalgamation of a Reverend and a Priest that tried to exorcised her. Also it's worth noting that Anneliese didn't just have 1 exorcism, she had 67, she chose to stop eating (trying to fast the demons out), she wasn't forced to do so, and  it is pretty widely excepted that her whole possession was a fraud, that was heavily influenced by the movie The Exorcist that came out two years before. I also find it destroys credibility for this story that Anneliese's parents had her body exhumed and reburied in a tin lined oak casket (to make sure the demon stayed inside her dead body)...So clearly being a crazy pants runs in the family. If they were going to change so much then they should have said inspired by not based on true events. Then it would have made a little less of a Crabby Patty. 

So Not A Horror Movie:

Yeah so am I the only one who noticed this is not a horror movie. It's a paranormal courtroom drama at best. Not a horror movie. I am really annoyed with how Hollywood will slap horror on so many movies that just aren't horror (*coughs* The Village *coughs*). This is another example of Hollywood pandering to an audience that they think will make them the most money but not living up to the genre convention in a pretty big way. The whole bill it as this, when it's really that is obnoxious and I wish they would stop doing that. If you are a hard core horror fan (and I am) and you see this is the horror section, you will most likely be upset when it doesn't deliver on it's promises. Not cool Hollywood, stop doing this.

Final Thoughts:

Admittedly this film has it's flaws, but over all it's a really good film and I genuinely enjoys it. That said if it weren't for Jennifer Carpenter's performance I may not have received it so well. A lot of the flaws I was able to overlook because of her amazing physical performance.

Works Cited

The Exorcism of Emily Rose. Dir. Scott Derrickson. Perf. Laura Linney & Jennifer Carpenter. 2005. DVD.