Homework assignment...

After a long night of sulking and self-loathing, I was told I should write something about the women and horror class I'm taking to honor the blog's origins and the month of horror, October. What I would like to write about my class isn't fit for this blog as I respect the elevated discourse established by the writers and readers who contribute to the site. There is also my fear that any criticisms leveled at established academics will come back to haunt me at my future tenure defense.

Horror is a rather problematic genre for me mostly because I'm a snob. I hate the hokiness (hokeyness?), the gore, the predictability of the plot, but really what I hate is the idea that what I see on the screen should scare me. Heart attacks scare me, unemployment scares me, but a ridiculous puppet devising over-wrought methods of execution ala the Saw franchise does not scare me. Part of me realizes that this is my own shortcoming as a cultural critic and I hope to one day see just why horror is so good. The other part of me is shaking its head at that statement and wonders why this blog post isn't on Peter Greenaway's brilliant film about landscape drawing, The Draughtman's Contract.

Appropriately enough, my first horror review will be on one of the most cliched of all October films, Halloween. Today's in-class screening was the film that put Carpenter on the map and gave hundreds of scrappy, independent upstarts the incentive to make shitty movies. But what can I say about Halloween that hasn't been said in the film's nine 'sequels' or the dearth of scholarship written about the film or by people who put 'John Carpenter' in the same sentence with 'Alfred Hitchcock' when discussing great filmmakers? After racking my brain for minutes, I sadly came to the realization that perhaps Halloween should be dearer to me than I originally thought.

My favorite 'low' genre has always been comic books. Nerdy kids like to read and mostly we like to read about muscle-bound heroes with super powers that have earned the trust and respect of everyone around them. Namely, characters who represent everything we aren't. However, comic books see fit to mock their fanbase by having Captain Pectorial spend 30 pages using brute force to beat his foe, guy with brain/mental/doctor/professor/science in his name. To sum up, guy I want to be constantly beats up guy I am and I love him for it. But more on my self-loathing in a moment.

Ignoring the theory of the 'final girl' and gender studies for just a moment, I'd like to think about the film's views on education. Laurie escapes horrific death not because she's a frigid virgin, but because she's a nerd and smart people survive (to remain virgins) in the world of horror movies. What frightens Laurie early in the movie? Leaving her chemistry book at school and therefore losing scholarships that would get her a better education and thus a better job. Well, she doesn't come out and say that but a nerd knows a nerd by any other name would still dread bad grades. And who does Michael Myers kill? People who run rampant over the English language using 'totally' as flippantly as people today use 'literally.' And what greater confirmation do we have for the endorsement of education than having a doctor act as the arbiter of justice filling Michael Myers full of lead. That's right, a paunchy, bald guy with no less than three degrees gets to save the day. Is that me on the screen? Am I finally a hero?

So, thank you, John Carpenter but not for turning nerds into knights and finally giving me my place in the sun. That theory has more holes in it than any ten of your films. No, thank you for letting the horror-hating guy I am take a beating from the horror-loving guy I'd like to be. You've so brilliantly recreated my relationship to comics that I might have to give this horror thing a try...