KDD on High Tension and those Annoying Mister Things

[kdotdammit]

OK, so I decided to spend lunch at the movies. Surprise. Surprise. Not like I don’t like slinking to the movies in the middle of the day during the blasted heat furnace of summer. Oh, and before I get onto the movie, can I just say for a minute here: Will someone please ban those annoying fucking mister things they have in Tucson? I swear, whoever invented the Annoying Mister Thing really needs to go to Stupid Invention Jail. I NEVER saw these things before I moved here, but they annoy the FUCK out of me and I don’t like the FUCK to be annoyed out of me. I mean, they make me wince and flinch when I walk under them. PLUS they muck up my glasses. Like I need to have my glasses misted. If I want my glasses misted, I’ll mist them myself dammit. I don’t feel like walking through a sprinkler system on my way into Starbucks for an iced coffee. That’s it. From here on in I am boycotting businesses with Annoying Mister Things. They’re no longer allowed in my life.

Oh, the movie. OK, so I saw High Tension, the French version of an American Slasher Splatter Film made in French then shittily dubbed into English. I really don’t know what to tell you about this movie. I mean, it would seem that maybe the person who made it (and I don’t even have the gumption to look up who in the hell that is) was thinking that he could use the horror and gore genre as some kind of art house vehicle to say something profound and deep about repressed sexuality or something. And aside from the fact that the gratuitous violence and gore were, well, gratuitous, I guess the film did look good and sound good when you weren’t focusing too deeply on the blood that was splattering everywhere, the severed head blowjobs, or the other various severed limbs and body bashing images.

So one of the things I heard from many people about this movie is that the ending is Really Stupid. I guess, but folks I got news for you. I saw the ending coming a mile a way from the opening scenes. Let me put it this way (spoilers ahead):

1. Two girls go on road trip to visit one of the girl’s family in the country.
2. One girl spies on the other girl taking a shower and gets all hot and bothered watching her friend soap up her naked breasts.
3. Peeping Girl retires to her room, lays on the bed, unzips her pants, and masturbates thinking about her soapy breasted friend.
4. Psycho maniac slasher killer pounds on the door right as Peeping Girl is coming.
5. Psycho maniac then systemically kills Soapy Breasted Girl’s family and abducts Soapy Breasted Girl.

Uh, is it just me or isn’t it a little bit OBVIOUS who the actual killer is in this movie? I mean, maybe I’m just too psychoanalytical or whatever, but it seems to me that when Peeping Girl jerks off and comes thinking of Soapy Girl, her sexual desire obviously becomes a Monster that must destroy all heteronormativity in its path and take possession of the object of its desire. But maybe I’ve just seen too many female horror films. I dunno.

So, yeah, when we discover at the end of the movie that, duh, Peeping Girl is one and the same as Slasher Homicidal Maniac, it was no surprise to me. It’s just that films don’t usually literalize this kind of sexual psychology (except for like in Psycho or something). Usually you have to read between the lines.

So anyway, you got lots of gratuitous and over the top violence. Then you got a message that says jerking off thinking about your Soapy Girlfriend’s Breasts turns you into a psychotic maniac. Take those two things and what do I think about the movie? Well, don’t waste your time and/or money unless you get off on this kind of thing which judging by some of the rustling and panting coming from the old men in the back of the theater may be the case for some freaks.

But, even more disturbing than the movie itself were the virginal college freshman girly girls sitting in the row in front of me. Fuck the severed heads and circular saw blood splattering dismemberment scenes. What made these girls freak out and hide their eyes in horror? The Peeping Girl masturbating. God forbid. They ought to try it themselves sometime. I find masturbating just the ticket to keep the Psychotic Slasher Killer in me at bay. I mean, I couldn’t imagine what I would unleash in myself if I stopped jerking off.

On the bright side, watching High Tension did work to exorcise the demons that surfaced during yesterday's viewing of Mysterious Skin. So I guess there is something to be said for that.

Now, back to our regularly scheduled programming.