"Get Out", I Did, and Why: Horror Movies v. Today's Horrors

Yesterday, I walked out of the movie, "Get Out." I went intrigued from hearing the writer/director, Jordon Peele describe it. I'd heard that movie critics gave it the highest ratings and one friend recommended it after seeing it. I don't usually like horror films, but shoved those thoughts aside.

As the movie began, I leaned over and said, I may not stay. A little more than a third into it, something happened and I knew it was downhill from there. I leaned again and said goodbye.

I sloughed it off to not liking horror movies... ever since the House on Haunted Hill, that  I saw at the Woods Theater back in the day. Oddly, they held a raffle after that show that I won. Very apt, and more odd, the prize was an electric knife. As a twelve year old, I didn't have a lot of use for it, but our parents used it for years to carve the Thanksgiving turkey.

Today, I told a friend about leaving the theater and being renewed as I walked out into a 70° sunny afternoon. She offered a connection and insight into today's experiences of horror...  killings, hunger,  refugees in camps for years, persecution of Muslims, Jews, Native Americans, and African Americans, health care nearly taken away for 24 million, our planet under seige.

It was an aha! comment. I recognized I have little margin for things that make me feel more stress. She made another interesting comment that "screwball comedies" came out of the Great Depression... thet were the antidote to a very difficult time. For me, a horror movie, no matter how well made or a horror story, no matter how well told, does not lighten the heart.

Painting: Lighthouse 2 by Mary Longe, Watercolor, 11x14", 3/23/17 wwe.marylonge.com