Movie Trivia–Tough Love For the Children Of Horror?
Allow me to indulge, in this installment, in a little psuedopsychological debate. See, I was off reading the AMC Monsterfest Blog, when I came across the somewhat tongue-in-cheek article from horror novelist Scott Sigler.
Being something of a horror film expert and regular journalistic type myself, I figured I’d go all Glenn Beck on this schmuck and counter up his arguments with a few of my own.
Remember, we’re talking about fictional children here, so no angry emails, puh-leeze.
The big thing that really needs to be said is that I hope that Scott Sigler never actually has children of his own, and if he does, I hope they never become demonically possessed, otherwise infected with evil, or experimented on by shadowy government agencies. His article mentioned at least half a dozen poor little ones unfortunately tainted by the shadow of evil, and his response is nothing less than draconian. His recommendations for treating these poor victims range from the violent–a “size 10 boot in” the “little crab behind” of poor Regan MacNeil–to the downright preposterous–breaking up Charlie McGee of Firestarter fame’s family and instead placing her with Smokey the Bear as a foster father.
Has anyone checked Smokey the Bear’s credentials? Is he even FIT to be a foster father? I heard after the last California wildfire he spent three days in a tequila coma on the floor at the Roxbury, muttering something like “Only you can prevent forest fires”, only with a whole lot of expletives added.
Perhaps his most horrifying example comes in the case of poor Samara Morgan (from The Ring–play the trivia here) in which he recommends her summary banishment to a VHS copy of Sometimes They Come Back…For More.
And if that ain’t child abuse, folks, I don’t know what is. After all that poor little girl had been through, Sigler wants her forced to live in one of the most godawful movies ever committed to VHS. I wouldn’t condemn child molesters to live in a VHS tape of Sometimes They Come Back…For More or anything else that might’ve come from Artisan’s brief run at dominance of the direct-to-video horror market.
There are LIMITS, people.
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Aw, but Regan’s so sweet. Even if Regan is a terrible name. While there’s no doubt that the “evil child” theme is overdone, you can’t fault the people who were in movies back before it was a cliché.
At least Linda Blair obviously had a sense of humor about the role, judging by the fact that she starred in Repossessed. (Interestingly, the French title translates to “A parody of The Exorcist.” Maybe that’s why our humor doesn’t cross over too well.)