Too Much Headspace

Found something I liked in MovieBob's review of Orphan:

"Spooky Kid" movies, of course, belong to the subgenre of exploitation movies I've occasionally liked to call "projection monster" films - wherein the "monster" is a generalized version of a certain type of person or identity that most of us never get to "confront" the way we secretly want to; usually for purposes of social correctness (see: "Evil dad" movies, "evil cop" movies, etc.) The ultimate expression of this is the Zombie Movie, wherein the form of the monster allows for the good guys to lay indiscriminate waste to humanity itself. That's why "spooky kids" are always prim and smug, as though they're fully aware of how much you HATE bratty kids sometimes. Don't lie. You know exactly what I'm talking about. Ill-trained little rugrats running around causing chaos, screaming infants inexplicably brought into movie theaters... there are times you just fuckin' HATE children, and "spooky kid" movies are an outlet for that - particularly seeing them take the innevitable beatdown at the end (in fact, one of the few marks in "Orphan's" favor is that it has seemingly no qualms about inflicting physical harm on it's population of obnoxious tots).

He's not necessarily saying this is a bad thing, no more than any exploitation cinema, but it is an excellent description of why I typically don't like this sub-genre (besides the fact that "normal people" suddenly can soak bullets and use non-lethal objects with deadly force). I wrote a paper in college exploring the idea that the idea of "vampires" changes to fit the fears of the age: in the dark ages, vampires were strangers that stole away kids; post-enlightenment they were distant nobles that prey on villagers; now, vampires are beautiful strangers you meet at bars, take home for the night, and the next morning you have an incurable disease.

Hmmm.

Beyond vampires, the popular choice of monster movie also reveals a lot about the culture of a time. Zombie movies are big now; our biggest fear as a culture is other people. Conformity - if they bite you, you become like them. Herd mentality - swarms of people, making it hard to move. Paranoia - everyone's out to get you, everyone's a possible enemy. Disease - it spreads through crowds. And, of course, the outbreak usually starts because of science-gone-awry, military testing, or the government. Meanwhile, we've started avoiding people altogether; we don't join groups, we socialize over the net, we drive single-passenger cars instead of taking the bus, all to maintain a bubble of isolation. Zombie movies give us justification to blow away any stranger that approaches us.

Then this gets combined with my own self-named sub-genre, the "Hey, I cut out a spleen!" genre. This sub-genre combines horror/suspense with an anatomy lesson, allowing the audience the excitement of seeing someone get dismembered, disemboweled, decapitated, and dissected. It is exemplified by the Saw movies and the CSI tv shows. Yes, CSI. As far as I'm concerned, those shows exist only so people can get the thrill of Saw-level gore while feeling superior about it because it's a cop show on network tv. "Oooo, look! That stripper got stabbed twelve times in the face, and now they're removing her uterus!" Sigh.

Anyway. So now you've got a culture that dislikes and fears the people around them, and delights in seeing them get hacked to bits. I'm not the kind of person that thinks this will have a negative influence on our culture, driving more people to violence and killing; I'm just a little disturbed by what it says about who we are.