UNRATED

Written Wednesday:

I went to the video store yesterday, to return five (5!) videos, most of which were overdue (to the point where we OWN them), and I looked at the new movies.

Boy, was that a mistake – it made me sick to my stomach (or maybe it was still the mousse?). It was the images used to entice people to rent…I would say they were 80% extremely violent: bloody and/or twisted faces, bloody knives. “Unrated” (used to be rated “X”?) seemed to be a big selling point as well (one image was a close up of a woman’s face with her head pressed against the ground by a disembodied hand…the cover had “UNRATED” written in a bloody scrawl across the cover).

Courtney asked me awhile back why people want to watch horror movies, and I sang the Barney song to her, which goes like this: “It’s kinda fun being scared, when you know it’s not for real. Surrounded by your friends, nothing can hurt you when you feel that scary feel. When you feel that scary feel.” I’m not against a suspenseful movie, and sometimes you need a little gore (The Birds, Psycho, The Exorcist, and even The Shining are great movies) but 80%! Where’s the balance?