Solar Powered Horror Films

#370 Solar Powered Horror Films

They happen in darkness, usually with a good wind blowing. Or in heavy rain, often accompanied by thunder and lightning. But the stories in horror movies are never told in sunshine, and that's not fair.

You ever see a zombie who's zombie-walking down a sunlit street? What about those guys whose faces look like hockey masks? Ever see one of them sitting around a veranda sipping a mint julep or even a latte? No. They're always hiding behind tombstones in midnight thunderstorm, just waiting for the innocent teens to skulk by in their olive drab slickers. And notice the skulking teens never wear yellow slickers. They're always olive drab or brown. And what are those teens doing out in the graveyard during a nighttime thunderstorm in the first place?

What this country needs is a good daylight horror film, preferably about an attempted attack at a Marine barracks. Then we'll see what they're made of. It's always Ozzie And Harriet couples or lone women who get the visits -- after the hockey mask-wearing zombies finish off the innocent teens skulking through the graveyard.

Such stereotyping.

It's as if nothing bad ever happens in the sun -- except maybe getting skin cancer. And no one's going to make a horror film about that.

We need to find some reptilian-looking creatures go after bluebirds or robins in a park on a Sunday afternoon in spring or summer. Enough of this shooting-film-in-darkness baloney.

Of course, the real scary stuff DOES happen in sunlight. Or at least in daytime. Ever see Congress in session? How about a meeting of the president's cabinet, the National Security Council or the OPEC Ministers?

But that's a different kind of horror.

Suicide bombs, pitched battles for square inches of iraq, they happen in daylight.

But nothing supernatural.

Ghosts in the house? Don't worry. You can get a hotel room for the night or pitch a tent in the back yard. The house is always ghost free in daylight. Soon as they see the guy who delivers the morning paper, they go back into the attic or the basement or the walls or wherever they stay during the day.

If your house is haunted, just get yourself a skin tanning set up and set it up. The ghosts'll go nowhere near it.

In an age when fairness and equality supposedly rule the land, it's just shocking the way we depict our ghosts, monsters, deranged serial killers and their kin. Besides, all that nocturnal activity is a slap in the face of night workers. Postal people, cops, fire fighters, doctors, nurses, toll collectors, road repair crews, telephone operators and the people who work at the TV stations, making sure everything is up and running so you can you get to see those wonderful late, late, late infomercials for floor sweepers, make up, positive thinking and pocket fishing kits.


Let's bring horror films out into the open, where they belong.

I'm Wes Richards. My opinions are my own, but you're welcome to them.®
©2008 WJR