Startle Comedy

the new name for American horror



I recon "Startle Comedy" is what we should rebrand American horror as. Alot of the things that happen in them are so ridiculas and the scary part isn't horrorifying so it kinda doesn't belong in that category. I think the Americans must have a limited vocabulary because the words they're looking for are startling, exciting and gorey. None of these is actually the word horrorific and therefore horror is completely out of context here and defies the very reason for its branding as such.

I saw Final Destination 4 today err, I mean, The Final Destination. I think they were trying to be clever with the title. You see its probably the final Final Destination movie. That's why the The is there, to add emphasis to that fact. But the problem with that title is that the initialization is the same 'the Final Destination' for both the first film and this one. So gramatically speaking, they have the exact same title. This was just the very first of uncountable errors in the film.

Now don't get me wrong but I actually do like the Final Destination series. But my reaon for liking them is completely different to most. I find the films so unfathomably ridiculas that I can't help but find them funny. Unfortunately I was in the cinema with someone who is easily agitated by my actions and had to literally hold my hand over my mouth to stop myself from laughing at the opening scene.

As for errors, I usually make it a point to count the number of deliberate mistakes made by the film makers but this time I just decided to go with the flow. For a start in the opening scene I spotted 25 before I began to lose count as sometimes they were coming as fast as 3 a second. But let's go through the things that are typical of the most dangerous fictionverse known to man.

For a start, they are often in places where something can go horribly wrong like an aeroplane, a motorway, a roller-coaster or in this case a race track. OK, I know this particular argument is weak one but why does it always have to be huge disasters that kill many people. Why not make one where their is only two people and they take turns saving each other over and over again.

You see, the American directors are using the old "He's coming to get you" technique of killing off all the minor characters building up to the ones you actually half give a shit about to make you worried for your favs. Now this is completely unrealistic, Death isn't a showman who likes to build up the worriment to entertain people. No, Death just does his job and doesn't bother trying to make it entertaining. Especially since the only ones who know he's doing it don't really appreciate his work.

Next is the issue of Death's moral standing. Death seems to like making bad people suffer and kills nice people quickly and painlessly most of the time. Now I don't remember any of this happening over here. Sweet little kids that have never done anything wrong and are good and kind to everyone end up dying long and painful deaths over several weeks and money griping nasty pieces of work live to a ripe old age without any suffering and get shot in the head or something and die painlessly. Why does he act at random most of the time but when they manage to dodge him he gets all holier than thou.

And that brings me to another subject, how the hell do they manage to escape death in the first place. Death seems to have the ability to warp reality and cause ridiculasly unlikely events to happen at the same time. So what's stopping him from just doing it the instant they escape and getting them all at once? It seems to me that he deliberately gives them the chance to escape so he can revel in increasingly creative ways of doing his work. I suppose if you're death you would get bored real fast of having to do the same thing day-in day-out 24-7. So Death kinda thinks "You know what? I'm not gonna kill them that way after all. It would be way more fun if I did it this way." when the accident is underway and it's too late to change that part. Come to think of it, Death's sounding like a pretty OK guy so far.

Next is the issue of the sheer stupidity of the victims. Surely, if you knew you were gonna die by the world being out to get you then you would protect yourself right? You certainly wouldn't go to places like a carwash for example, where you are entrapped by heavy machinery. Also, the people often do really dangerous things like putting a knife rack on a table with a cloth or use the gas cooker's hob to light their cigarettes, whilst it's still in their mouth. The classic FD moment is when the characters look at something and say "That looks dangerous" and then proceed to do activities in the direct vicinity of it. No, if it were me I would say "Now that looks dangerous" and proceed to get as far away from it as possible. Also, I like the way Death gives them such in your face clues of how they are going to die and they just think "That's weird. I wonder if it means something" when they already know that Death is out to get them and he leaves clues behind. It's like Death is saying "I'm just warning ya. You gonna die this way." "Now you can stop it if you want yano" and then after they do nothing he just says "Ah fuck it. You gonna die now you stupid bimbo." "For Gods sake. I made it obvious enough.". I'm really starting to like this guy now.

While we're on the subject, Death seems to have a very obsessive compulsive nature. Why is it that he has to kill them in the same order they were gonna die? It's like he has to obey the rules but doesn't care what else he fucks up provided that that particular group of people die the right way. There are also many opertunities for them to die but they don't. In this film in particular, a racist was going to take out his anger on the black security guard who saved his life and Death said "Whoa now. That's not right. I have to do it my way." and killed him before he had the chance. No, if I was Death, I would have no quarms about people doing my job for me. He clearly has no reason to do it a certain way as he completely distorts reality and alters many other people's lives trying to kill them. It's kinda like Death has his boss looking over his shoulder all the time saying "Have you killed them yet? You better or you're fired. And make sure you kill them in the right order too. I'm watching Death. One slip up and you're outta here.". I feel sorry for the poor guy now. I wanna give him a pat on the back or a hug.

That reminds me. The physics in this universe or completely distorted. For example, if a primitive see-saw was formed by a plant landing on a can. And then on the lower end was a fork and a claw hammer fell on the other end. In the real world, the fork would leap a few feet in the air before falling to the ground. In this universe, the fork would fly all the way down the street and stab them in the eye. In a world where the most simply harmless thing can kill you, you just might as well not bother protecting yourself and leave all the dangerous pointy objects around because you're more likely to have your eye taken out by a flying Furby. But the strange thing is that things that are actually really dangerous don't actually do any harm. In one part of the film some hair straighteners end up heating up an aerosol can, but instead of the can exploding and firing razor sharp pieces of foil into the victim, it just fires like a rocket and propels itself into something which falls down. This is one of the things that gets me the most about these films. Something dangerous is happening but it doesn't harm them and then when they do something completely safe it kills them. Why bother giving them clues when they're never gonna guess how they die anyway.

Next, I'd like to draw attention to the retarded general public in these films. They often do things like put gasoline precariously balanced on the edge of something and then go for a smoke and toss their cigarette away. This is just completely retarded. The funny thing is that everyone is always surprised when this turns out to be dangerous and kills people. In the film there is a fire alarm that isn't actually plugged in. How fucking stupid do you have to be to leave the fire safety gear unplugged? It's not too bad when it's the average joe doing it but when it is actually their job to be safe, yano like when they are the safety official at a major event like, let's say, a Nascar racing circuit. They must be real thick not to notice.

And that brings me to my next note, the safety devices. In this universe a safety device is designed to make itself more dangerous when it is in danger of killing someone. Things like when water gets spilled on an electrical device, instead of it just blowing the fuses it goes into overdrive. And when the gauge on something reads "Danger" it doesn't actually switch itself off despite the fact that it actually says automatic shut off on the safety device. Also, many of the devices are capable of much more than they are designed to do. I remember the sunbed scene quite well where the neon strobes didn't burnout when the charge going through them got too high and instead proceeded to cook them and set them alight. And that brings me to this, why does everything break in the most dangerous way imaginable. Windows always smash into pointy shards that can slice people clean in two when they fall on them and many other ridiculas things. This universe looks pretty fucking dangerous to me.

Then there's the issue of the fantasy workings of machines. Anything that is mechanical has to have big grinding gears in it and pipes that transport flamable liquids are always made out of flexible plastic. I think that their point is that the general public don't know how the inside workings of these machines work so they have creative freedom, but I think the general public can be fooled to a limit and these films go so far beyond that point it's ridiculas.

You may have wondered why I keep using the word rediculas. This is because it fits these films perfectly. Ridiculas means that it is so far-fetched that it is completely unbelievable to the point of hilarity and ridicule. I think that fits it quite nicely don't you think.

Also, I have presumed Death is a guy throughout this. Of course I realise Death may be female but killing people seems like a very masculine thing to me and therefore it's easier for me to write it that way quickly.

Back on topic, the people seem to be made out of some very strange substances, none of which are actually similar to reality. For example, when they are sliced in two it is always a clean cut like slicing an apple. Now organs move, skin is floppy and bones break, not cut. So why do they always get it wrong. Saying that, there where a couple of moments when they got the special effects ab-sol-ute-ly perfect but alot of the time it was just silly. The part where someone was crushed by a tyre and the part where the blood was mixed with the water flow, were very realistic and completely out of place with the rest of the film. Whoever did that bit should be given a medal. But some of it was just so stupid. The head being detached after the car exploded was just completely moronic and the way that somehow when the car exploded it's whole engine block was removed unharmed and thrown through the air.

Anyway that's my piece. The films are fun to watch because of their ridiculasly unplausable, conveluted and extreme death scenes, but anyone who finds this any more than funny and, for the love of God, scary needs their head examined.

Tally Ho!