Remember the opening of “Scream 2” with the movie screening and Jada
Pinkett Smith getting sliced up during the show, but the crowd thinks
it’s only a gimmick?
Two Fullerton, Calif., men just lived that scenario. Thankfully, they lived through it, too.
Remember the opening of “Scream 2” with the movie screening and Jada Pinkett Smith getting sliced up during the show, but the crowd thinks it’s only a gimmick?
Two Fullerton, Calif., men just lived that scenario. Thankfully, they lived through it, too.
The movie they were watching, a 2007 horror movie called “The Signal,” is about a strange transmission that is broadcast through every cell phone, TV and radio and turns people into vicious killers.
Back up a second.
Two men were randomly stabbed while watching a movie about a signal that turns average people into psychopathic killers.
The local news report on this incident said that no connection between the film and the attack could be made.
I want to believe that. My horror fan heart yearns to remain innocent and naïve about the correlations between on-screen and real life violence. It doesn’t happen, I tell myself. No one died during “Scream” — except a little bit of Wes Craven’s threadbare respectability — and kids don’t run over people with cars after playing “Grand Theft Auto.”
I can’t remain so blind, but let’s not rush into this.
I am not calling for a ban on horror movies or serial killer movies or violent, graphic video games. A good 65 percent of my entertainment would go right out the window and into the garbage heap, that many think such things belong in.
If this happened, I’d have to take the replica of “Christine” off my desk, as well as my Edgar Allan Poe bobblehead, Iron Maiden “Phantom of the Opera” figurine and Undertaker action figure.
At various times in this country, there have been incidents spurring people on to censor or ban horror-related entertainment. I remember reading about a kid in 1940s New York who dressed like Dracula and went around biting people.
Horror comics were banned in the ‘50s because they supposedly corrupted youth.
Then all those youngsters who couldn’t read “Tales From the Crypt” anymore were sent to Vietnam to face real horror.
Here’s the thing, for every nutjob that wants to be Dracula or makes his own Freddy Krueger gloves from kitchen knives, there are a thousand people who use horror movies, books, TV shows and violent video games to cope.
You know, life doesn’t seem so bad when you see people being chased by giant monsters or masked asylum escapees.
Somewhere out there, someone always has it worse than you do.
As for the two guys in Fullerton who came right up and close with horror, I hope they got a refund.
The price of movie tickets and popcorn these days — that’s a real killer.
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