On Crap

If you read, watch, or listen to horror, you're going to discover a basic truth: There's a lot of crap out there. It's true for other genres as well, but we're talking about horror, so smear some vapor rub under your nose and put on your waders. It gets pretty deep in here.

I just watched a movie on Netflix that billed itself as horror, and it inspired the title of this piece. I debated for a while whether or not to tell the title of the film, and I've just decided to give the relevant details, and if you can figure out which one I'm talking about, well, you've earned the warning to avoid it.

Disclaimer: Have I written crap? Oh hell yes. Will you ever read it? Not if I can help it. If you've ever read anything of mine that was crap, please send me an e-mail and we can arrange to meet somewhere along a dark, deserted stretch of road. If you can bring your own duct tape, plastic bags, and hacksaw, that would be ideal.

Now just as crap is unavoidable, in producing as well as consuming, it has a function. When you write something that stinks and oozes, you better have the ability to recognize it, and either flush it and learn from the experience, or break it down to it's raw elements and start over. If you can't recognize it, rest assured someone out there can, and they will not be shy about informing you. When you read or watch crap, you can tell what it is pretty quickly. Then, if you have the itch, you start noticing specifics. In the movie, Daniel Baldwin does a good job acting, but his character is one dimensional. All he is, is a really sadistic murderer. That's it. Good villains, on the other hand, are worth watching because they're interesting. Jigsaw has a code he follows, and he's a murderous psycho because he lost his unborn child and was given a death sentence by brain cancer. Hannibal Lecter is smarter than we are, has those creepy abilities to manipulate other people and to accurately predict what they'll do in important situations, and lived through a horrific childhood. These plot points make us envy and empathize with the villains. We make up little details about them in our head that are never mentioned in the book/movie. We say to ourselves, 'If I had that ability, I know exactly what I'd do with it.' Our movie villain is a murderous bully, and he's lucky. He gives us no hint of being a genius, and he NEVER makes a mistake.

Watch your foot. I think my disbelief is going to fall there.

The two protagonists would have to have an extra hour of screentime, each, in order to work their way up to being one-dimensional. We have a jaded cop, and an optimistic shrink, and that's all that they are. The emphasis here is on the victims, and to be fair the women deliver decent performances. But when the credits rolled, I wanted my hour and a half back. There was no point. Almost nothing changed, and the only thing that did, only made matters worse. I will admit that the later 'Saw' movies have this same problem, too, so I can understand people who make a claim to them getting labeled as crap. But I dare you to stick that label on the original, and then defend that viewpoint.

That's the difference. Good writing, whether it ends up in print or on a screen, tells a story. There is progression, whether for good or ill, but it has a pace, and a plot. I can sum up this movie by saying, 'Sadistic murderer tortures and murders some pretty women.' Except for the gory details, that's the whole story, which is no story.

That's crap.

I finished 'Blood' on Wednesday, and on Friday I started 'A Room'. I'm really excited about the latter, as I've had it bouncing around in my head for a long time now.

I'm trying out a new technique for these entries, writing them on an Open Office document and copying and pasting them in. This way I'll have a record in case Google swallows my blog and refuses to spit it back up, and I can write these earlier if I get an idea. Hopefully, that will prevent me from being late again.

Still writing.