Friday the 13th

I saw my first Friday the 13th movie last night. I know, it's a bit embarassing to be my age and NOT to have seen any of them. I did grow up in the 80s, after all. But, I've never been a huge fan of the horror genre, and as an adult, I've spent too many nights alone to really want to scare myself before bedtime. However, M&C have convinced me that there is some value in dabbling in the genre, so when my Spanish friend asked me if I would watch the new one with her, I agreed.

As I've said, I'm no expert in the genre, so here are a neophyte's musings on the subject.

All those years of being worried about being scared were unfounded. The does not, and really isn't designed, to scare. The movie relies on cheap tricks to shock the viewer, with some gruesome killings and a little T&A thrown in for good measure. While watching it, I couldn't help but notice how important the foley is to the movie. You're watching, lah-di-dah, when CRASH coincides with Jason jumping out from behind a tree with a machete. It's the actual sound that is shocking, not really the picture.

Of course, the filmmakers do a good job -- as it were -- of using off-screen space. Or, not allowing us to see anything. The movie is shot rather tightly, so even though you know, you KNOW, that Jason is lurking around a corner, you are not allowed to view the entire scene. When the angle does shift to where he is, along with another sound effect, you are duly surprised. Well, surprised physically, but not mentally. You know it's going to happen all along, it's just a question of which milisecond brings the knife.

This over-reliance on sound and cuts reminded me of an article that I read while teaching Fahrenheit 451 last year. Life is full of "technical events" or "jolts". This all technical TV speak, so the article tells me ("Culture Jam", btw, I'm unsure on the author at this point). Producers? Editors? Directors? refer to any shift in the picture as a "jolt". So a cut is a jolt. And, there are more and more jolts on television and in the movies these days. We are overwhelmed by the information -- so much that we stop paying attention and become zombies. (Ah, another, better, horror genre: the zombie flick.) And that's all Friday the 13th does; it relies on jolts. We try to find meaning, but we cannot because we are never given enough meaning. But the changes evoke a purely physical reaction: dilated pupils, elevated heart beat, higher respiration rate. We mistake it for fear, and it's a fun feeling, so we see the movies.

Oh, and tits don't hurt, either.