The Horror, The Horror

I KNEW the day of reckoning was coming. I just wasn't ready for it to hit me when it did.

The Sack Cheri lobby. Posters of the movies alone presage man burning in eternal hell. Caveman, with a cartoon Barbara Bach performing oral sex on a dinosaur's tail; Superman II (just when you thought it was safe to go back in the air...?); Heaven's Gate (now weakly billed as "the most controversial film of the year!"--if I threw up and then demanded a paying audience that would be controversial, too).

But then I stumbled upon the epic to end all epics, the terror to transcend all terrors--Happy Birthday to Me! was its name. "Find out the disgusting ways six snobbish high school classmates die." I studied the poster. A screaming student is pinned into the upper left-hand corner by a dominant shish-ke-bab. The top line of the poster reads. "Find out why Richard never ate shish-ke-bab again!" I don't care if this is parody. This is beyond human. I cringed picturing the meat popping out the back of his neck. But the worse was yet to come.

I took my seat in the theater and was informed that the preview to follow was rated R. Uh oh. A dark screen. A thundering voice "On Friday the 13th, 1980, (Kathy Sue Whittaker?)'s 12 closest friends were brutally murdered. What made her think Friday the 13th, 1981, would be any different?" The title unfolds: "FRIDAY THE THIRTEENTH--PART TWO." I felt like I was 20,000 leagues beneath the Charles. Not only does this movie have the gall to acclaim itself as a total rehash of an awful, misogynist film that was the epitome of cinema merde, but the trailer shows us every murder in the new version--in order--and then asks us to come see it anyway. To wit: A girl stands in front of a window. A large ice pick comes in from off screen, she screams, and--cut. The announcer booms, "THIRTEEN!" A man stands idly in front of a tree. Two hands gripping barbed wire encircle his neck, and--cut. "FOURTEEN!" And so on. And so on. And so on. By 17 I was screaming "MORE! MORE!" By 18, I yelled out for the next number before the murder-to-be was even presented. At the end of the parade. I applauded wildly. Was this not expected of me? I definitely must catch this to see all the heads roll and the blood spurt. And having noted each murder's place and method. I'll know exactly when to buy the popcorn so I don't miss a thing.

Perhaps this is all the reflection of a culture fed up with liars. We are tired of Rosie Ruiz pretending to win the Boston Marathon, tired of watching a psychic and three networks show us a miraculous, false prediction of the assassination attempt. We are trying to forget that a Pulitzer Prize-winning news story was totally fictitious. We have already forgotten we had a president and secretary of state who lied through their teeth, and instead have made them best-selling authors.

What we want are facts. The gore doesn't matter as long as it is dependable. Tell me who will be mangled, why, where, and how. Tell me what I am supposed to like, think, do, feel. Stop making all these judgemental demands on me. I wish reviewers would stop writing all those words and just award stars. It's so much easier. Reagan's recovery--4 stars. The weather--2 stars, Vietnam--no, that's a bullet. Sorry. See how easy life can be? Pass the popcorn.