Pics Of The Dead.

I have a really big problem with seeing dead bodies.  Videos of, pictures of, with my own two eyes, don’t matter.  It isn’t something I’d ever like to see, I don’t care who it is.  The way I see it, that’s what horror is for.  I can’t speak for all horror fans — or any? — but I’d like to think there are others out there who are horror film freaks but share the same queasy uneasiness when it comes to the real thing.  I don’t buy all this “violent television, movies, video games desensitizes kids to real violence”.  No, at least it didn’t with me.  I think those who are desensitized to it were predisposed to be desensitized, they already had it in them they just needed something to draw it out.

I have this theory about those types of people that need to see the death of a prisoner, or terrorist.  The ones that slow down to view the wreckage of a horrific auto accident at maximum capacity.  These are people who should be into horror movies, Mortal Kombat… but instead they’re into going to Bed, Bath, and Beyond (Old School reference?) with their spouse on the weekends, watching romantic comedies on weeknights.  They suppress that lust.  Which is worse.  At least with a movie you know it isn’t real.

Back in 2006, it disturbed me even to see Saddam Hussein get executed.  For all the awful things he did, the crimes against humanity, the genocidal attack on the Kurds, the killing of his own people, even him… I don’t want to see him die.  Especially in such a ancient, medieval way: bag over the head, standing atop a wooden, rickety platform, the noose before him.  It was hard for me to even watch that.

Imagine what I thought when throngs of Americans were calling for photos of Osama Bin Laden’s corpse?  A number of Senators and Representatives (notably Lindsey Graham) came out of the woodwork to protest their discontent with not showing the photos.  What does that say about this culture we live in??  When politicians, who’s sole motivation in life (most of them) is looking good in the eyes of their constituents for purposes of reelection, come out demanding pictures of a mutilated terrorist leader?  What kind of people was Graham pandering to (the reactions to the notion that Rick Perry had executed 234 prisoners in TX is probably the answer [Off subject but... holy shit, in 2002 the guy vetoed a ban on the execution of mentally retarded inmates??])?

Opening up my browser today, to my home page which is the BBC’s News site, I see a photo of lifeless Muammar Gaddafi.  And I can’t help but think that these inhuman, monsters of people, these destroyers of life, somehow win every single time we view a photo of one of their corpses.  When, oh when, will we grow up?

-Sonny

(2010) The Year of Cthulhu?

Was 2010 the year of Lovecraftian terror and the mighty cosmic bringer of darkness known as Cthulhu??  The “year of the Cthulhu”… I’m not sure, but the creature is making his rounds, weaving in and out of pop culture.  But Lovecraft wasn’t interested in smarmy New World Orders, or even cult followings (re: Cthulhu in 2010), he was interested in the vastness of the universe, the utter insignificance of man, and the problem with running a planet as a self-centered species.  His opening line in the original short story featuring Cthulhu — “The Call of Cthulhu” — summarizes nicely:

“The most merciful thing in the world, I think, is the inability of the human mind to correlate all its contents.”

Lovecraft was a strict atheist; the cult following of the “Necronomicon”, along with his fiction and mythology, is ironic at best and misguided at worst.  He didn’t believe in Cthulhu (although I tend to think he did believe in extra-terrestrial life, which isn’t blasphemy for an atheist), he believed in his works as warning shots at mankind.  The lack of “good” or “evil” in his stories — they’re said to be an invention of man, to explain the world around us — is a powerful concept, even if it doesn’t seem to be on the surface.

That concept is very inspiring.  I’ve never tried to explicitly write “horror” (though perhaps some of my pieces involve a bit), but I might just give it a shot.

And now, in addition to South Park and Neonomicon, the end of Supergod will apparently feature the beast.  2010 indeed.

-Sonny