Don't go down in the basement!

I’m an avid movie-watcher. My favorite genres are dramas and suspense thrillers. Not the icky kind with blood and gore – more psychological thrillers that have unexpected twists. The blood and gore movies are just too ridiculous and the zombie movies are just weird. They’re all the same: At least once, in all scary movies, someone inevitably walks around alone yelling, “Hello??” When has the killer ever answered? “Yeah, I’m in the kitchen....need a sandwich before we start all this mayhem?" And how is it that zombies are strong enough to rip your intestines out with their bare hands but are too weak to get past a piece of plywood with a sofa in front of it?

The logic in horror flicks is all wrong. For instance, if I was vacationing in the woods out in the middle of nowhere, how far out in the woods is it really necessary to wander in my underwear to find out where that noise came from? Besides, the farther out the noise, the less likely it is that I would have been able to hear it in the first place, right? There are a couple of scary movies that aren’t too bad – I like the ‘Alien’ and ‘Jurassic Park’ series and I enjoy haunted house ghost movies like “Skeleton Key” or “The Others”. Every now and then, Em and I will have a movie marathon night and watch all of the movies in one series or have a ‘theme’ night. I must say, when watching scary movies at night, it is wise to know the cat's exact location at all times. Admit it....when you turn off the light in the basement, you get out of there FAST!

It’s funny the things you notice in movies that seem to be universal. How come, whenever someone is carrying a bag of groceries, it’s always got a baguette sticking out of the top? How does it happen that when someone is being chased through downtown, they always inevitably end up escaping into a passing parade? Or when someone is running away from someone chasing them in a car, why do they continue to run in FRONT of the car? Make a sharp turn! You’ll improve your chances!

There are a few things I’ve learned that just might come in handy someday:

-- The ventilation system of any building is the perfect hiding place – no one will ever think of looking for you in there and you can travel to any other part of a building undetected. You know, despite the fact that it would actually make an incredible amount of noise and  you’d probably fall through the closest seam…IF you could actually FIT!

-- All bombs are fitted with electronic timing devices with large red readouts so you know exactly when they are going to go off. Oh, and you’ll ALWAYS have only one or two seconds to spare when it is successfully diffused.

-- A man will show no pain while taking the most ferocious beating but will wince when a woman tries to clean his wounds.
-- Kitchens don’t have light switches. When entering a kitchen at night, you should open the fridge door and use that light instead. When you close it, there will always ALWAYS be someone standing behind it. 

-- When you are running for your car – you know, the only one left in the parking garage in the middle of the night – you will ALWAYS drop your keys before you are able to open your car.

I appreciate a well-done movie. Believable special effects, plausible situations, intelligent dialogue – something where you can actually get lost in the storyline from start to finish. There COULD be an island of dinosaurs…..YOU don’t know! I’m gonna go watch “The Shining”.