recently, my mom told me she had watched a really upsetting zombie movie. she said that it had bothered her so much she had trouble sleeping. i asked, "was it dead girl?" yes, yes it was.
deadgirl has long been on my will not watch list. for those unfamilar, its about two teenage boys who find a zombie girl chained in the basment of an abandoned asylum. i'm foggy on the details from here but i know that the girl is raped. i know that things don't go well for at least one of the boys and i think some of the boys' actions devolve further. i don't know for sure because i've never seen it. and i won't.
so, with october, my month of crazy horror movie watching almost upon us, and with a great deal of buzz occurring for two movies i WILL NOT SEE, i felt i needed to write about this.
as a lover of horror movies, i adore the scared exhilaration that comes with watching a well made scary movie. a good horror movie can leave you feeling like you've just ridden a roller coaster. movies like dead girl leave me feeling angry and sad for the human race.
every 2 minutes, someone in the united states is sexually assaulted. one sexual assault every two minutes. 1 out of 3 women will be a victim of domestic violence. these facts are NOT OK and the numbers may actually be worse due to the number of incidents that go unreported and reporting standards. we live in a rape culture. while i don't believe that these movies are the cause, i do believe they can have a desensitizing effect. people start to think rape is normal. it isn't and its definitely not entertaining.
yes, murder happens too. every day. but its rarely the variety seen in horror movies. demons, chainsaw murders, genetically mutated monsters - these things only exist in movies. the plots of the movies i won't see sometimes feel a little too "ripped from the headlines."
i won't be seeing the woman or a serbian film. i've seen the original last house on the left, but i won't ever see it again, nor would i watch the remake. same for straw dogs. the list goes on... some of these movies may even be well made but i'll never know. that's my choice, my way to to say "THIS IS NOT OK."
