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As some people know, I have been fighting a foot injury that has required me to be sidelined for awhile. How did the injury come about? Well, a group of demented people wearing creepy masks broke into my house and I had to go all ninja on them. They happened to come on a day where I was in the mood for chewing gum and kicking ass and, unlucky for them, I was all out of chewing gum. OK, OK, I was hiking and I took a serious misstep. Suffice it to say it sucks and I don't wish it on anyone. So, what's a girl to do while she is sucking on vicodin lollipops and waiting for the time to pass? Well, not much actually but hopefully you will find a day in my life entertaining to read anyway.
7:30 AM Wake up, forget that my foot is messed up and try to walk on it. Being reminded is quite painful. I stand next to my bed and feel a major case of boo boo face coming on, I realize that although it's adorable to pretend I can accomplish things today, I really can't. The reality hits and I make peace with the fact that the only thing I'll be doing is elevating my foot, taking painkillers, watching movies and reading. I know this sounds like a completely fantastic way to spend the day but try doing it for a week or longer. Norman Bates quotes run through my head...She just goes a little mad sometimes. We all go a little mad sometimes, Haven't you?
8:00 AM Since Norman Bates is already in my head I may as well watch PSYCHO. I first saw it with my mom when I was 12 and it scared the shit out of me. I had seen horror movies before PSYCHO but this was the first psychological thriller I had seen. I am making a mental note to myself to watch this with my 13-year-old nephew when he comes out to visit. He is a budding horror fan-in-training and he needs to be schooled on the classics, this is one of them. I don't care how many times I see it; it never loses its spark with me.
10:30 AM I decide to pull a Jimmy Stewart and play a game of REAR WINDOW. Only when I look out MY window I see a 72-year-old retired army colonel obsessively tending to his lawn. Wait, wait, I don't see his wife! I just know he has killed her and put her dead body in a trunk. He's buried it in the garden, under his petunias I bet! The big let down comes when I see his wife walking out of the house holding a giant glass of iced tea, telling the colonel he needs to put on more sunscreen. Not exactly the stuff hitchcockian dreams are made of but what can you do?
11:00 AM I wonder why George Lazenby only played James Bond once. Was he fired or was it just him just thinking the whole Bond thing wouldn't take off? If the latter is true, I imagine him sitting at home watching the success of Sean Connery and Roger Moore and exclaiming in a most dignified British tone, "Fuck ME, Dammit!".
11:15 AM I have a new hobby! Taunting my puppy with my bad foot. I move it slightly and she goes mental. I don't know if she had a bad incident involving gauze and surgical tape before she entered my life but seeing my foot makes her want to slap at it and growl... A hobby should pass the time, not fill it. The game abruptly ends when she comes in for a giant leap and lands right on the foot.
12:00 PM I have a phone conversation with a friend who needs me to settle a debate for him, what was the occupational difference between CHICO AND THE MAN and SANFORD AND SON. Did they BOTH run junkyards? I tell him CHICO AND THE MAN were mechanics and that seems to settle the dispute. I find it amusing that he would call me for an answer and, most importantly, how does a debate like that start in the first place? After the phone call, I take a dose of painkillers.
12:45 PM Ah, painkillers are kicking in, sweet! I grab the remote and start to flick through the channels. I come across a movie called SANCTUARY, it represents itself as being a horror movie for chicks, whatever that means. Well, I discover what that means when I notice it is on the Lifetime Movie Network. This means between killings there will be issues to deal with such as harlequin romance-style flashbacks, suppressed memories and somewhere along the line, babies being switched at birth. Also, it stars Melissa Gilbert. This movie has more red flags than I can count but the painkillers have made me weak and I give in.
My suspicions were right; this cannot in good conscience be called a horror movie. Half-Pint from LITTLE HOUSE ON THE PRAIRE has lost her mother to a madman. She falls in love with some dude and it turns out his brother is the above-mentioned lunatic, I knew it! A conflict of the heart, 'Oh, I know your brother killed my sister but this just feels so right'.Then the flashbacks start; they involve a woman seeing a pervert looking in her window. She decides to leave the room and sneak up on him. While pinning him down on the ground she grinds her stiletto heel into his chest and tells him what a bad boy he is. Some guys would pay a lot of money to have this happen to them but not this guy. Later on he kills her by the lake.
I can't deal with it anymore and turn the channel. MISERY is on! Now we are talking. I start to drift off...
3:00 PM I awake from a sound sleep and in my painkiller-induced fog I hear the voice of Annie Wilkes, telling me I was wrong to kill off Misery Chastain and that I am going to need to rewrite the whole book. Oh god, she is going to hobble me! Um, too late bitch. I decide to get something to eat, it takes me 4 1/2 hours to make a Peanut Butter and Jelly sandwich.
While eating my lunch I realize I have reinvented the phrase 'Cabin Fever'. Instead of Eli Roth's horror tale, my version would be a foreign film, black and white, all moody, my pouty tortured expression staring off into space and everything has to mean something and be depressing. No, there aren't any flesh eating viruses here or ninja-pancake eating freaks but I'll be dammed if I can't open the top to the peanut butter. Fin.
4:30 PM My friend Sandra comes over and suggests that I grab my crutches and go for a nice stroll. I try to not punch her in the face. Yes, great idea I say but remind her vicodin, crutches and long, steep driveways don't mix. I know she is just trying to help...People always mean well. They cluck their thick tongues, and shake their heads and suggest, oh, so very delicately.
5:30 PM I decide I need to watch people who are in as much pain as I am, and since I can't do that for real, legally in this country, I decide to watch a movie. HOSTEL? Fitting, but no. I look in a stack of Netflix movies and see the title MALEVOLENCE. If ever a title fit my present mood, it would be that. We have a winner!
MALEVOLENCE is a story about a group of bank robbers who need a place to lay low for awhile. They, of course, pick a really bad area to do so. Something that is sorely missing from horror movies today is mood. It's easy to toss blood and guts around but if you don't have mood you are, well, basically just tossing blood and guts around. Director Stevan Mena, who also wrote and produced, creates a mood and does so with everything available to him. He even did the music, which really worked for me. It reminded me of the great slasher films of the 80's. I imagine Stevan as a Renaissance man; one who not only did everything mentioned above but also made sandwiches for the crew every day and made sure everyone slept on Downy-soft bedding each night.
I love a movie that acknowledges its roots but still keeps the movie its own, that isn't easy to do but Mena does it here. One of the robbers takes a walk through a house and you just know he needs to leave right away. I got such a tinge of the original TEXAS CHAINSAW MASSACRE in that scene but it was stylized enough to come off as a homage and not a blatant rip off. It kept my attention; I truly wanted to know what happened next. Near the end there is a scene where a detective is reading some diary entries and I was hanging on every word, very effective. The ending follows a formula BUT Mena does it in a way that feels very fresh and I like the guy for that. Also, in the end credits he gives a shout out to, "That woman who warned us about the ticks". So, again, I like the guy.
8:00 PM With my bloodlust not officially satisfied; I notice that SEVEN is on and decide to watch it. Now let's face it, this movie won't exactly put the spring back in my step, in fact if you're depressed or upset before viewing it you will most likely want to take hostages after it is over but you have to admit it is a flawless film, it truly is. Visually, in my opinion, it is a masterpiece. What really makes it stand out is the way it messes with the mind of the viewer. A movie that mentally assaults you and sticks with you, those are a rare find nowadays.
The seven deadly sins are the centerpiece here but I have always thought the scene in the diner between Morgan Freeman and Gwyneth Paltrow really sets the tone for the rest of the movie. Her character can literally feel the sleaze and scum of the city on her skin. What makes it worse for her is that she is expecting a child and is tormented about bringing a baby into such a sick and twisted world. I think she represents hope, the ray of sunshine we want there to exist in a world that can be dark and dreary. Of course, in this particular instance, the rug is pulled out from under us. After the diner scene you just KNOW things are going to end badly for everyone involved. If you ask me this is Kevin Spacey's best work. When he is finally in custody the explanation he gives as to why he did what he did is almost plausible. These people CHOSE those unfortunate events for themselves. He was merely a director, seeing it through to the final act. When Brad Pitt's character refers to Spacey's victims as "innocent", Spacey gets to mutter some of the best lines in the movie, "Only in a world this shitty could you even try to say these were innocent people and keep a straight face". Good stuff, after it is over you feel like you have really experienced something.
10:00 PM Ah, bedtime! Only your Fan Girl could go to bed after watching SEVEN and sleep peacefully. But in all seriousness I have the best family and friends in the world. I get phone calls, a fruit basket and flowers. People just checking in to see if I need anything. Yeah, I am going crazy. I have read the same magazine 3 times, watched movies, envying how the actors can walk normally. And, I have waited for the neighbor across the street to off his wife but in reality, I can't complain because I am grateful and I am blessed.
You know what I think? I think that we're all in our private traps, clamped in them, and none of us can ever get out. We scratch and we claw, but only at the air, only at each other, and for all of it, we never budge an inch....
I hear ya Norman but I think I am going to make it through this one.
Until Next Time....
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