Happy Halloween, and to all a good fright! We asked our contributors,
What scary movies do you watch for comfort, not chills, especially at this time of year?
When people refer to their “comfort film” I’d wager dollars to donuts that nine out of ten don’t envision the roar of fantastical creatures or the shriek of terrified coeds. To the uninitiated, finding comfort in the morbid and macabre might seem a touch sadomasochistic, but we lovers of horror movies are just built a little differently, aren’t we? Actually, you can put down your Lament Configuration Box, because it’s nothing quite that salacious or unusual. If you want a brief horror history lesson, Upper Paleolithic human beings depicted cave drawings of people in peril dating back about 40,000 years ago. Fast forward to about the first century AD to arguably the oldest written account of a haunted house, from Roman author and lawyer Pliny The Younger. Then it’s just a few dozen centuries of a hop, skip, and a jump from Dante Alighieri’s The Divine Comedy to Horace Walpole’s The Castle Of Otranto and then Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, and we pretty much have our conception of horror fiction as we know it. From there, it’s just a scant 78 years until we get what’s considered the first-ever horror film with Georges Méliès’s THE HOUSE OF THE DEVIL (no relation to the 2009 Ti West film, although that flick is badass). What these four decamillennia of horror have in common is the very human feeling of exhilaration that comes from being made afraid, only to come out safely on the other side. You could think of it as immersion therapy, but there’s a delightful turning point all horror fans feel when some of these sources for spookiness become as snuggly as that baby blanket with the satin trim that you used to like to rub on your cheek.
Now that we have some context, I can take off my Ken Burns baseball cap that reads “Let’s Be Civil About Jazz!” and slip into something a little more comfortable. I’m thinking of a pair of scotch-stained longjohns, a blood-splattered flight suit, a snow-dusted brown leather jacket, and an oversized beaver-fur felt cowboy hat. Sounds pretty cozy, right? Well, it should, because that’d be the outfit Kurt Russell wears to embody one R.J. MacReady in John Carpenter’s 1982 cult classic, THE THING! Sure, the first time I saw Carpenter’s sci-fi survival horror chef-d’oeuvre, I was scared shitless by its open-ended existential dread and Rob Bottin’s otherworldly creature effects, but as the decades frittered away, I’ve come to regard this film in the same league as my threadbare pair of basketball shorts that just scream “comfort.” Call me crazy, but this nippy nihilistic nightmare is my comfort zone. I’m not sure if it’s the inescapable arctic landscape, Ennio Morricone’s dark and droning score, or the rampant claustrophobia and paranoia of a research facility besieged by an unidentifiable monstrosity from beyond the stars, but as soon as that jagged blue text tears through that spacescape in the intro, I’m in my happy place.
This might have something to do with my viewing habits for this film. For me, this is the cinematic manifestation of seasonal affective disorder, best watched during the desolate depths of a midwestern winter. No festive holidays should be on the horizon, and ideally, viewing is done during or directly after an enormous snowfall. The atmosphere inside is important too. My home theater set-up is in a dark basement with minimal windows, so when you dump a foot of snow on this little house, the added darkness and sound dampening makes you feel like you might as well be trapped in a research facility at the South Pole. In terms of refreshments, I’d keep it minimal for the duration of the feature. This isn’t really a popcorn flick, so instead I opt for a large mug with a 70/30 ratio of coffee-to-whiskey. It seems to pair well with the film and invokes the right mix of jittery and ornery, thus giving you an approximation of the mental state of those poor souls of U.S. Outpost 31.
Finally, there’s the question of the company. Everyone is different, but for me, this film is a solo adventure. Aesthetically, my viewing posture for THE THING is more akin to Robert De Niro’s Travis Bickle at the movies in TAXI DRIVER, as opposed to Robert De Niro’s Max Cady from CAPE FEAR. I’m sorry, folks, but I take my comfort cinema seriously! I even wrote a song about it that was decidedly not a hit. In a futile attempt to be social, I once patronaged a midnight screening of THE THING at The Music Box, only to end up shushing a poor couple that was just trying to giggle and flirt behind me. I should apologize for that. Sorry, folks! I hope the rest of the date went well. Now I almost exclusively watch this movie at home with a lot of blankets and my two rowdy dogs, both of whom I dose with Benadryl for maximum lethargy so as to discourage fighting and growling throughout the many dog scenes in the feature.
All my neuroses and idiosyncrasies aside, I can assure you that when baseline conditions are met, I take great comfort in watching John Carpenter’s THE THING, and my goal in writing this is that you, the reader, gleaned some tips and tricks to maximize your own viewing experience, but at the very least, you’ve gotten a chilling glimpse into a space cadet who’s spent one too many winters tied to this fucking couch.
Tags: A. Wilford Brimley, Adrienne Barbeau, Aliens, Antarctica, Bill Lancaster, Charles Hallahan, Chess, Comfort Horror, David Clennon, Dean Cundey, Dogs, Donald Moffat, Ennio Morricone, Horror, Joel Polis, john carpenter, John W. Campbell, Keith David, Kurt Russell, Larry Franco, Peter Maloney, Richard Dysart, Richard Masur, Rob Bottin, Sci-Fi, T.K. Carter, The 1980s, Thomas G. Waites, Todd Ramsay, Universal Pictures
No Comments