Horrific Life Lessons

Horror movies are meaningful.  The good ones (let’s face it, there are some pretty awful ones out there) explore society’s fears, shine a light on our own shortcomings and hypocrisies, make us ask hard questions about morality and faith, and provide catharsis in letting us experience our worst fears without having to experience them in reality.  For many, horror films are their roller coasters, that fun shot of adrenaline that makes them feel alive. 

I watch horror films for all of these reasons.  Sometimes they are just fun.  Sometimes they are art.  Sometimes they are all of these things.  The extremes in emotions that you experience when you watch a truly great horror film can make the best of dramas pale in comparison.

However, there are so many important life lessons that can be learned from horror films as well.  The Brothers Grimm understood this.  In their original fairy tales, the stories contained extreme horror and frightening imagery.  But, they also contained morals and lessons.  I think horror films still contain these messages.

I have compiled a list of lessons that I have learned from some of my favorite horror films, and wanted to share them.  Yes, some of these situations might seem pretty specific and it might seem unlikely that you would ever find yourself in that situation.  But, please, take heed and be wary, because you never know when all Hell might break loose.

1. Anyone with button eyes is not to be trusted. 

2. Don’t be a teenager. 

3. Just avoid babysitting altogether.

  

4. If you need an inhaler, tape it to your body somewhere for easy access.  Also, if you’re told to avoid the basement . . . avoid the basement. 

5. If you end up in an old house in rural Texas with a huge amount of morbid taxidermy hanging about, excuse yourself immediately.

6. When you suspect a loved one is possessed by the devil, remove, from that person’s room, any objects that have the potential of being shoved into any orifice. 

 

7. When you are visiting the cemetery and you spot a suspicious person shuffling and groaning, don’t try to make small talk, destroy their brain and find someplace safe to hide away for the rest of your life.

8. If a murdered serial killer starts inhabiting your nightmares . . . just throw in the towel (or the bed-sheets). 

8. If you are on the lamb, and need to place to stay for the night, do yourself a favor, don’t stop at the first hotel you see.  Drive on and stay at a Holiday in or something. 

9. No matter how good it looks, don’t eat the damn grape. 

  

10. Don’t live in a house built on a native burial ground.

11. There is a chalky under taste.  Don’t eat it.  Don’t let the old lady into your home.   She is a Satanist. 

12. Again . . . don't be a teenager.

13. If you find yourself in a situation where you are in the Antarctic, and anyone in your group could be a murderous shape-shifting alien, just take the chance and kill everyone else.  It will stop the alien from escaping and save humanity, unless you are an alien too . . . so . . . in that case it may be time for you to check out as well. 

14. Don’t stay in creepy cabins in the middle of nowhere, and if you do find yourself inhabiting one of these places, for God’s sake, don’t play the reel to reel that reads out the spell in the Necronomicon that unleashes the evil in the woods.

15. You’re in a hotel, it’s winter, you’re stuck there . . . figure out a way to blow off some steam, or you may do something you regret. 

16. Start with a bigger boat.