{"id":6143,"date":"2024-11-12T08:45:56","date_gmt":"2024-11-12T07:45:56","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/damiengaleone.com\/?p=6143"},"modified":"2024-11-12T08:45:56","modified_gmt":"2024-11-12T07:45:56","slug":"us-and-other-tales-of-horror-movie-angst","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/damiengaleone.com\/?p=6143","title":{"rendered":"Us and Other Tales of Horror Movie Angst"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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On Saturday afternoon I go out with the doggy. We step out and we are instantly engulfed in a thick, soupy mist. I can\u2019t see the metro station \u2013 which is enormous and only about 100 yards away. After a few more steps the dog looks back at me with a \u2018really?\u2019 look on her face. I shrug at her and we move forth.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

After a few more yards still we cannot see either the metro or the building \u2013 both too large to lose while being immediately nearby and not drunk on absinthe. Though I don\u2019t put much direct thought into it, something about the scenario seems familiar. Something scary is lingering at the edges of my thought process.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But I shake away these misgivings. We\u2019re in our front park, for Pete\u2019s sake. And it\u2019s Saturday at around 2 pm \u2013 Cheat Day! What could go wrong on Cheat Day? Only a monster would kill a man on the day he can eat whatever he wants. Only a monster.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And that\u2019s when I realize what I\u2019m reminded about \u2013 just about every horror movie I have ever seen. The one that particularly concerns me is Stephen King\u2019s The Mist. If you haven\u2019t seen this feelgood charmer, it\u2019s about a group of strangers that get caught inside a grocery store together when a mist swallows their town and moves them into an alternate dimension (or moves an alternate dimension\u2019s residents to this one). Anyone who goes into the mist dies \u2013 badly, and at the hands of other-dimensional spiders.   <\/p>\n\n\n\n

I am now in the mist. Like, well into the mist. I begin looking at the ground and its environs. I mistook a plastic bag for a giant spider. When I bump into a trashcan I nearly had a heart attack. My shih tzu is not the kind of dog known to fight off other-dimensional poisonous spiders. And neither am I. Since it\u2019s 2 pm and November in Prague, it\u2019s going to get dark soon. I pick the dog up and we run home. Once inside, I breathe a sigh.       <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Like most of you, I am relatively susceptible to horror movies. When I was a kid, we watched Friday the 13th<\/sup> at a neighbor\u2019s house. To get home from this neighbor\u2019s home, we had to walk through a forest. I came very close to gripping a tree and sending for my mother. This terror made itself known to me a few years later when I saw Nightmare on Elm Street with a buddy. I was underage and so was he, but his parents got us in the Eric 4 Feasterville and we felt like such big boys. That is, of course, until I went home later with a glazed mustache of movie theater popcorn and realized that I had to fall asleep. See, the catch 22 of dealing with one Mr. Frederick Kreuger is that he gets you in your dreams when you are asleep. You can\u2019t win. I hope the guy who came up with that one has a beach house. But I also hope it\u2019s infested with Stephen King\u2019s spiders.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This is the fun of horror movies \u2013 the tension it creates. What could be better than being one abrupt sound \u2013 a phone-ring, a sneeze, a door-knock \u2013 away from screeching at the top of your lungs? In the movie, this tension is released by the scare, the jump, the graphic visual of a hockey-masked psychopath slicing a bikini-clad teen open with a machete. You know, the norm.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But when you get home and the girl from The Ring lurks behind each door, there\u2019s nothing there to release the tension. Sure, you could argue that there is no real tension there because, well, you know, the girl from The Ring isn\u2019t behind my door (right? Right?!!), but still. Horror movies are the gift that keep on giving. And so I have come to terms with the facts that every camping trip reminds me that The Hills Have Eyes. Every stay at a hotel reminds me that every boy\u2019s best friend is his mother. Every fun afternoon at a warm beach in summertime reminds me that I thought it was safe to go back into the water. Then I look for fins. Every jaunt to an arctic research station is marred by some Thing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Later on in the evening, I subtly try to barter doing dishes for bringing out the dog. I\u2019ll give anything to avoid the outside, the mist isn\u2019t gone \u2013 it\u2019s just dark now. However, Burke has designs to hold onto the dish job. I finally relent. As I am getting on my shoes, she puts out a peace offering.   <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cHere, look at this shih tzu. It looks like Maisy, but a little wonkier.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The picture is a shih tzu who has the same white and gray markings my dog has, but this one has matted fur and a tail that has seen better days. My shih tzu\u2019s crooked teeth look a little like a graveyard. This shih tzu\u2019s teeth are so crooked it could pick its nose with its bottom canines. And while my pup has a wonky shih tzu eye, this one is so cross-eyed it could read two different newspapers on opposite walls. Basically, it looks like a cute shih tzu who\u2019s seen some shit.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cCute!\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I leave with the dog.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Downstairs, I text Burke: It\u2019s like Maisy\u2019s \u2018Us\u2019 dog.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n

If you haven\u2019t seen the movie Us by Jordan Peele, stop reading now (spoilers ahead). The plot revolves around a doomed family vacation interrupted by a facsimile of their own family. Only the other family is quite disturbed and deranged. Seems they have been kept in barracks underground where they were fed rabbits and grew more and more deranged as they were forced to act out their above-ground twins\u2019 actions. Everyone on earth has a twin under Earth. And they are all fucked up. And on this night, they come \u2018take over\u2019 their above-Earth counterpart\u2019s life. Pretty creepy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I note now that my Maisy is walking me a little more quickly than usual. Towards the mist. Does her tail look the way it did when we left the house? She stops. Passing by us is one of our local bartenders, who must be on her way home from work.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Only, is that really her? Her hands look a little strange. Are her eyes darker than they were when I saw her last? Is that rabbit\u2019s foot on her keychain? The bartender says hi \u2013 to Maisy, not me. Though admittedly, this is par for the course in el Praha. Nevertheless, I am on edge.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The dog pulls me towards the metro. I pull the other way towards home. She sits and waits. I relent. She pulls me again down towards the metro. Down. I don\u2019t want to go down to the under-Earth people\u2019s barracks. I don\u2019t want to meet my under-Earth twin? What if I\u2019m a bigger asshole? It\u2019s not out of the realm of possibility. Hell, depending on how you know me, it might a foregone conclusion.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I realize I\u2019m being ridiculous and I pick the dog up. She is all of 11 pounds. She is not bringing me to the under-Earth area, no matter how many times I have seen that horror movie. But as we walk home, she does let out a growl I\u2019ve never heard before. Oh man.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Have you ever seen Cujo?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

On Saturday afternoon I go out with the doggy. We step out and we are instantly engulfed in a thick, soupy mist. I can\u2019t see the metro station \u2013 which is enormous and only about 100 yards away. After a few more steps the dog looks back at me with a \u2018really?\u2019 look on her […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6143","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-blog"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p1EvEu-1B5","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/damiengaleone.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6143","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/damiengaleone.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/damiengaleone.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/damiengaleone.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/damiengaleone.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=6143"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/damiengaleone.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6143\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6145,"href":"https:\/\/damiengaleone.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6143\/revisions\/6145"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/damiengaleone.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=6143"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/damiengaleone.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=6143"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/damiengaleone.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=6143"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}