In general I’m not one for stopping a movie, even if it makes me uncomfortable.  I have what is perhaps a bad habit of not reading about movies before watching them, and occasionally that leads to problems.  Combined with my interest in watching films that I don’t have to pay for (i.e. they stream on services I use, or commercial sites like Tubi) this sometimes leads to bad choices.  I started watching Maniac (2012—more than one movie has this title), but stopped about halfway through.  It wasn’t because I was too scared, but rather what I was watching simply wasn’t what I watch horror for.  I’ve long preferred supernatural themes to mere slashers.  Some slashers with that supernatural element (the biggies: Halloween, Friday the 13^th, and Nightmare on Elm Street) still have an appeal, but for the most part more recent bloodbaths don’t really do much for me.

A few weeks after I attempted Maniac, I tried to watch Freaks.  This is an early film that I’d read about many times and didn’t really want to watch, but it was “free.”  In this case, part of a collection of movies I’d purchased on DVD some years back.  It turned out that the disc was damaged and got stuck in my player.  Now, weekends are a precious commodity.  I hate wasting time.  My wife was still asleep so I tried watching High Tension (2003).  I stopped about halfway.  One of the more extreme slashers, it also is a home invasion story, which I dislike.  It was predictable up to the point where I left off.  Then I decided to read a synopsis and learned it has a twist ending that may have made it worth finishing.  I’m no fan of torture porn, however.

By this point it was too late to start yet another movie.  It was light already and we had to go get groceries soon.  Finding time to watch horror movies, even on weekends, has been really tricky.  And I’m getting to the point where I may have to start reading about films before I invest time in starting them.  The problem is I prefer for movies to reveal themselves.  It doesn’t take a genius to know that “free” movies are often free for a reason.  Perhaps it’s time to start specifying “monster movies” for what I want to see.  Horror has wrongly been associated with mainly slashers for many years now.  Some of us prefer monsters, and preferably ones that won’t cost us an arm and a leg.