The battery ran out on my phone, which made me get up later than expected. The secret to my recent success has been an early rising--at least that's what I thought. Perhaps because I was short on time, I went on a tear today. I've secured two job interviews for next week, which means my hard work is paying off. This is no time to relax though. Just because I get one or two hits doesn't mean I can be smug. I still gotta stay on my toes.
I've been getting better at finishing my work early. Destiny is still drawing too much attention, but between job hunting, horror movie watching, and my writing, I'm doing an admirable job juggling everything. My only caveat is that I need to focus on each individual task more often. I keep jumping from assignment to assignment like I'm "multitasking," the very thing I blasted in my latest entry on JomattoPro. It's a symptom of my inability to focus. I admit, I eventually get things done, but I wonder if I'm doing it inefficiently.
Today's movies were The Orphanage, a Spanish film produced by Guillermo del Toro, and The Devil's Rejects, written and directed by Rob Zombie. From the very beginning of The Orphanage, I felt that it was something special. Once the end credits rolled, my initial assumption was correct.
Out of all the modern horror movies I've seen this month, this is probably my favorite. I got very strong vibes similar to The Others, which is another Spanish film production. There must be something in the water over in Spain that helps them create some really good ghost stories.
What I like most about The Orphanage is the strong emotional core. It also has the del Toro fairy tale quality where the afterlife is simply a continuation of existence where love triumphs above all. I've never been a fan of following loved ones into the void. I like to stay firmly on the side of the living for as long as I can.
Despite how well I like the film, it falls into the same traps that annoy me in every other supernatural thriller, and that is the nonsensical nature of "hauntings." Even if I were to believe that ghosts exist, there is no logical reason for them to screw around with the living for no other purpose than to freak them out. It's a movie contrivance meant to scare the characters onscreen and the audience, but in terms of plot, there's no reason for them to be playing around. If you were a ghost looking for revenge, I don't see why you can't show up without the creepy mist and nonsense and straight up tell the living person, "Yo, I got unfairly killed by such and such. Tell the police for me, kay?"
This is part of the reason why I love The Others. It completely subverts this aspect of supernatural horror and incorporates it very cleverly into its narrative.
I feel that the sudden death by car accident scene is becoming a trope in horror movies, because the same thing happens in both The Orphanage and The Devil's Rejects. It's becoming less shocking and more of a "okay, got it," type moment.
The Devil's Rejects is a rather irritating movie that somehow manages to redeem itself by the end, but not by much. It depends on your tolerance for watching depraved individuals indulge in depravity and getting away with it until they meet their comeuppance. Before I watched the movie, I read a review that remarked on how "brilliantly" Rob Zombie gets the audience to sympathize with his merry band of murderers, rapists, and general scum of society. That review couldn't be farther from the truth. This is one of those movies that I wish ended with a nuke killing everybody because there's not a single sympathetic character besides the poor victims.
The movie also affirms my stance on torture. It is not acceptable in any shape or form, even if the subject himself is Hitler. If you have to kill someone, at least make it quick and painless. No need to be monstrous about it and torture the poor fools before taking their life.
/eventlog
