The Devil seems to get blamed for a lot
of stuff these days. Heavy metal, Juggalos, all evil in the world. He
sure is one busy Beelzebub. Surprisingly though, horror movies blame
him more than anything else. You would think that a genre so into
evil would take it easy on the guy, but exactly the opposite is true.
Each and every tiny little demon possession or supposed bit of
witchcraft is automatically attributed to Satan.
Let's just think about that for a
minute. You're telling me that the embodiment of evil, ruler of Hell,
and the arch nemesis of God is 100% directly controlling every ghost,
witch, or kind of creepy unexplained entity in the entire the world?
Not only is that lazy writing, but if true, indicates that Satan
lacks a basic understanding of resource management. I'm no expert,
but I believe there's a pretty large pantheon of demonic creatures
working under Satan, If he can't get his underlings to handle a coven
of wannabe witches he needs to get his evil behind to a class on
developing and managing direct reports stat.
If Lucifer were any kind of leader it would be much more likely that you'd get some middle management demon
acting in his stead. He just realistically can't be everywhere at
once. He's not Santa Claus for crying out loud. I can't believe that
every idiotic cult that calls in gets a direct line to the big guy. I
have to make an appointment to get my hair done, but if I want to
channel the Prince of Darkness I can just walk right in and have a
seat? In no way is that possible or fair, unless Satan offers color services. I mean, if one of those
Jonas brothers (they're still a thing right? I just couldn't think of any other super annoying super Christian celebrities off the top of my head) and I both said we wanted to sell our souls to the
Devil at the same time do you think we'd both get the boss man live
and in person? No way. The Jonas guy might get a visit, but I'd probably get
some freaky ghoul that I imagine looking like Crispin Glover.
So if you're writing a horror movie and
you can't figure out how to explain the unexplainable just throw the
Devil in there, everybody else does. Let's take a look at this
non-comprehensive arbitrary little list I’ve made.
The movie Devil is about some people
trapped on an elevator that breaks down, and one of them is the
Devil. Like trying to destroy all good and innocence in the world
leaves him time to hang around fucking with a few people on some random
elevator. It just does not make a damn bit of sense. It wasn't the worst movie I've ever seen by a long shot, but it really doesn't show the Devil in a positive light.
The Conjuring. I absolutely loved this
movie right up until everything that was awesome and creepy was
negated by a devil worshiping witch. It could have just as easily
been done by Gerald the minor demon. What's he for if not to take on
small tasks and leave Satan free to focus on the big picture. I think
the Devil must be a serious micro-manager, and just doesn't trust
anyone else to help him out. I'm sure it's nothing against Gerald
personally. Satan just can't delegate effectively.
A whole lot of crappy sequels. From The
Blair Witch Project to Friday the 13th, and I think even
one of the Halloween sequels had some kind of stupid cult in there
somewhere. I'm pretty sure there was some satanic witch crap in that
last Paranormal Activity movie too, but I honestly kind of tuned out
about halfway through. The point is, lots of sequels toss in a little
Lucifer to try and liven things up. Or maybe they just want to try
and make some more money and don't have any more ideas. My bet is on
the latter.
Most possession movies. In the
beginning it was The Exorcist, and that was fine. Now there are so
many Possession of Somebody or Other movies that I can't even tell
them apart. The Prince of Darkness ain't got time for all that. If
the Devil you worship can effectively possess half a million teenage
girls, but still get beaten by the obligatory priest who's lost his
faith then you should switch sides now.
All those really bad movies in the late
90's that tried to get people interested in Satan by using big stars in their craptastic stories. I'm thinking 9th Gate, Lost
Souls, End of Days, and on and on and on. The world was nearly
destroyed by the Devil so many times back then it was just dumb. The
real joke is how many careers were nearly destroyed by making bad
movies involving Satan. Does anybody even know who Ben Chaplin is anymore? Coincidence?
Still there are some movies that use
Lucifer the way he should be used. The Omen or Rosemary's Baby or any
of those other children of Satan stories. He's got paternal instincts
just like every other being. It makes total sense for him to be
involved in the protection of his progeny. Sure, he can be a little
bit of a helicopter parent sometimes, but if you look at the number of
times that scenario has ended badly for him he's got a right to be a
little overprotective.
As corny as it is now I honestly think
The Prophecy got a lot of things right. Besides the brilliant
casting, it wasn't about the Devil causing trouble. Creepy pissed off fallen angels that weren't Satan were causing the world ending kerfuffle. Various other
low level monsters and zombie kind of things are out doing the grunt work, and Satan only gets involved personally to intervene when
the shit gets out of hand. Whatever problems you may have with the
movie it's exactly how things should be for a real Prince of
Darkness. Personally, I love this movie. It gets just enough right
that I can overlook what's wrong. And if we're talking good
respectful use of Satan as a character then it gets quite a lot
right.
Now get thee behind me Satan, you’ve
got to get to that weekend team-building retreat with your minions.
Needless
Things V. 31 Days of Halloween
Z Nation is awful. It's a shame too because I really used to like Tom Everett Scott, and zombies. I guess I still like zombies, but it's just getting to be too much when crap like this starts popping up.
Face Off is arguably the best thing SyFy has for original programming. I've watched it since the beginning, and it's still great all these seasons later.
I'll probably give Town of the Living Dead one episode, but it kind of looks like Honey Boo-Boo's family making a zombie movie so I don't hold out much hope.
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