Hope: Now Fully Transferable

Regular Reversals readers know I love a good (okay, even a bad) horror movie.

That's my lead-in to talking about Black Christmas. Which wasn't, by the way, all that bad. At the very least, it was fun-- gleefully silly, as opposed to the increasingly common dialled-in gunk.

Anyway. Black Christmas follows a bunch of sorority sisters as they're stalked by a serial killer. Subconsciously, as a viewer, you see several potential victims, and start placing your bets on who will stand up as the hero and survive this ordeal.

Without even realizing it, I placed my bets (in the form of hoping/assuming they'll survive) on the character played by Michelle Trachtenberg. The only other sorority sister with a recognizable face was Lacey Chabert, and her character seemed too dumb to last. But Michelle... she seemed sensible. Ready for a fight.

So midway through the second act, when Michelle bit it, I was genuinely surprised. And started casting about for the next possible hero I could pin my hopes on.

And that's when I realized: sometimes horrors are simply about someone surviving. It doesn't actually matter that much who. The horror movie is the world gone wrong. As long as one of our characters can take down the monster, the world is set right again.

Other examples of this "as long as someone survives" phenomenon: Pitch Black and Deep Blue Sea. (Got others?)

I can't believe it's taken me so long to process this simple truth. I'm sure there are many-a-masters-thesis out there on this very subject.

Horror Movie Real Estate

Horror movies are often set in the big city, the suburbs, or the middle of nowhere. There are advantages to all of those environments. In the city, you've got endless setpiece possibilities. In the suburbs, built-in satire. In the middle of nowhere... well, in the middle of nowhere, no one can hear you scream.

But seeing Slither reminded me that, sometimes, you're best off setting your horror in a small town.

Unlike a suburb, a small town is a microcosm. It's an entire world in and of itself. You get the schoolteacher fighting alongside the sheriff fighting alongside the old priest.

And everybody's neighbours; because everybody knows one another, the stakes feel somehow higher. "Oh no, it got old Mrs. Vandercramp! And her pet parakeet Simone!"

Plus, in the small town, you get that bonus feeling of things just being more wrong somehow. People get eaten at the church bake sale or whatever. There's a bigger gap between the world that should be, and the world that is. (Let's face it, those of us in big cities pretty much expect death by masked serial killer and/or werewolf.)

Look out, small towns: we're coming after you.