Not in My House

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I had a friend in seminary—nameless here because I mention no non-public figures without their permission—who invited me over for movies.  Although he was more of a comedy guy, he liked horror too and I couldn’t help but think of him when watching House (the movie, not the doctor show) recently.  The film looked familiar to me but I couldn’t recall having watched it before.  By the end I was pretty sure I’d seen it with my seminary friend one weekend afternoon.  There was too much I remembered someone else commenting upon.  A comedy-horror, House is one of those not-so-great movies that becomes a cult classic.  The monsters aren’t particularly scary, and the plot’s a bit disjointed, but still it bears repeating once every few decades.  There really isn’t any religious imagery, but it does reflect on American involvement in Vietnam.

Roger Cobb, a divorced horror writer, moves into the house where his favorite aunt died by suicide.  It’s also the house where his young son went missing years ago.  The titular house, which is, of course, haunted, is where Roger plays out his memories of Vietnam while trying to write his next book.  Monsters pop out of closets and show up at his front door as he tries to make sense of what happened to a friend in the war.  I couldn’t help but be reminded of Mark Z. Danielewski’s House of Leaves as mirrors and doors open onto voids that confuse the narrative but make the film like a funhouse ride.  My friend, with whom I must’ve seen it, commented on several of these scenes, which is what convinced me, by the end, that this wasn’t a new film for me.

I watched monster films as a kid—I was a late monster boomer.  Kids talked about prominent horror in school—Rosemary’s Baby, The Exorcist, The Omen—movies I didn’t see until I was an adult.  I watched a few horror movies in college and quite a few in seminary.  I moved away from them until I lost my career and then I came running back.  I’m not really sure what I’m looking for here in this haunted house.  Like most people, I don’t like being afraid, but there seems to be something hidden here.  Horror can convey meaning, even solace.  Very few people understand my use of horror for spiritual development, but it’s something with very deep roots.  And as realities in the quotidian world become more and more untenable, I’ll have at least have had some experience grappling with monsters.  Sometimes even with friends.

Rabbit Years

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A childhood horror movie that I only recall in the most wispy of fringe memories is Night of the Lepus.  It’s one of those monster movies that involves mutated animals, in this case the unexpected rabbit.  I’m not sure why it’s been on my mind lately, but a little research indicated that it was based on the Russell Braddon novel, The Year of the Angry Rabbit.  This book is out of print and still under copyright, so finding a copy wasn’t easy.  Apart from vague images of giant rabbits, I had no idea what to expect.  The book turned out to be a comedy horror, in that order.  Remembering that the movie wasn’t funny (although it is consistently considered one of the worst cinematic efforts of the time), I wasn’t prepared for this.

You see, I don’t like to read about books before I read them.  I don’t read cover copy.  (I tend not to watch movie trailers either, unless it can’t be helped, like when you’re in a theater.)  I suppose knowing a genre of a book helps, but I just wanted the experience of reading the story behind a movie that won’t completely vacate my memory cells.  The Year of the Angry Rabbit is a satire on government, war, and capitalism.  If you’re not expecting a serious horror story it’s quite funny.  Russell Braddon never became a household name—he was from Australia and a person’s cultural impact tends to be greatest on their own continent—but if you knew this was a satire from the start you’d probably enjoy it as such.  Although written in the sixties, it’s climax takes place at the millennium, now two decades past.  It’s always interesting to see what people thought we might be up to by now.

Although there are elements of humor to our politics, Orwell seems to have been more on the money than Braddon.  Nevertheless it’s important to keep the old stories alive.  There are still people like me who will seek out rather obscure novels from many decades ago.  They might have to have sat on library shelves for years without having been checked out—this used to be the glory of the library, before “evidence-based usage” studies ruined them.  I search for things I want to read in my local small town library and find that my tastes are too obscure.  Besides, old stuff has to be cleared out to make room for the more recent books hoi polloi wish to consume.  I’m glad they’re still reading.  For me, however, I’ll need to stretch back to a time before I was old enough to read to satisfy an unrelenting memory. It was rabbit years ago.

Exiting Amityville

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Okay, I confess. I watched Amityville 3-D. One of the standard features of horror, you see, is the sequel. As a rule the members of the franchise degenerate until they don’t earn enough money to keep Hollywood’s attention. In the case of The Amityville Horror, the story only made it three deep. I’m no film critic, but with missteps at almost every turn, Amityville 3-D almost made a farce of itself and horror fans take that as an insult. (Good horror comedy is an exception, of course.) The original story is well known: the Lutz family moved into the DeFeo murder house and moved out again just over a month and a half later. The tale has been considered both a hoax and a legitimate haunting, but subsequent families haven’t reported supernatural happenings on the property.

I had some hopes for this installment, as it was also known as Amityville III: The Demon. The second feature film was part of my viewing late last year, and it was okay. I never thought the original was that good, in any case. As I watched III I realized something was missing. Religion. Any sign of it. No priests were involved—this was the fear vector for the first two films of the series. Although John Baxter moves into the house knowing the history, he’s a skeptic and seems not even to believe as the house blows up in a silly finale before his very eyes. When the flies start buzzing around everywhere he thinks they’re just pests, not making the connection with the original account. The entire series is, of course, an extension of the Beelzebub—“Lord of the flies”—myth. That’s what gives it its demonic thrust.

When it finally comes time to wrap things up, and no priest has been called, and no religious imagery has been shown, there’s nothing here to scare but cheap startles. Eliot West, the leader of the cadre of paranormal investigators, attempts to free Baxter’s drowned daughter from the turquoise, boiling well that was dubbed “the gate to Hell,” a demon pops up and grabs him. There’s no explanation of who or what the demon is. Like everything else here it’s secular to a fault. And though it may startle, it can’t scare.

Not all horror uses religion, of course. Even some movies about demons avoid it and manage to be scary. If the premise, however, rests on religion gone awry—as in the first two films of the franchise—exorcising it completely is asking for trouble. Even if the telephone number for the realtor at the start of the film does begin with a secular 666.