On horror movies

There is an advert for the latest and greatest horror movie that currently has heavy rotation. I just cannot watch the thing. Kman thinks this is funny. He thinks the movie looks silly. It points out the difference between what we find horrifying.

Kman gets spooked by movies heavy on psychological horror. It gets under his skin. I don't have a real problem with these ones- I just pull apart the logic trail, the plot devices and the general story to the point where it is an intellectual exercise, rather than something scary. I enjoy seeing what the authors were trying to do. If successful, so much the better.

I get freaked the fuck out by slasher pics. I have such a low threshold for violent imagery. I even get screaming nightmares from video games- just from observing someone else play. Resident Evil was a real revelation for me. The first one. Back in the mid 90s. So I just have a difficult time pulling myself out of the visuals. Any more I am careful of what I see in the theaters. Because of this. I hate being stuck in a movie that makes my skin crawl. It's unbearable.

Some artists have this effect- but I don't mind because I can take my time to visually digest their art. It's not overwhelming in quite the same way. Francis Bacon, Joel-Peter Witkin, Egon Schiele, Kathe Kollwitz, Matthias Grunewald and even El Greco in person (when size really does matter) fall into the category of artists whose work haunts me. I suspect that in large part this is because they don't and didn't produce pretty art. They produced art from the gut, and didn't hesistate to show ugly reality and nightmares. I could probably go off in a discussion of artistic intent and differences and similarities of artistic content and style, but nah...

Just don't expect me to hit the theaters any time for one of those movies. Ain't gonna happen.