No offense...but you're broken.

The other day I was coerced into watching a film called "The Strangers". Granted, the film was a little suspenseful, and the hype for the movie was a bit over-inflated, but overall I was able to watch most of the movie without being too scared. Keep in mind, this is coming from the guy who brings his own pillow to the theater in order to cover his eyes during scary scenes. I am such a pussy when it comes to scary movies that I make up excuses (embarrassing excuses) in order to get out of having to see a scary movie. One time I actually hit myself in the face and gave myself a bloody nose to get out of the movie "Identity"; and, apparently, that movie wasn't even scary.

Anyway, I sat through the whole first 3/4 of The Strangers and actually kind of liked it. It was suspenseful, jumpy, and dark. It worked for me. Until the end. If you haven't seen the movie yet, please discontinue reading as I am going to rip the finale of this film apart and use it to belittle people who intentionally subject themselves to the tasteless, morally vacant, trash, which is produced by those emotionally and psychologically scarred individuals who should be under clinical care as opposed to being free to walk the street. Showing people being violently, and ruthlessly murdered is not acceptable entertainment. There are certain things in this world that both the human mind, and soul, cannot recover from without repercussion; watching the depiction of another human being in the act of getting tortured or violently murdered is one of those things.
The Strangers puts a young man and woman into kitchen chairs, bound by their feet and hands. Three masked figures; a father, a mother, and their daughter stand in front of the two bound individuals. They then proceed to take turns slowly pushing a kitchen knife into the two hostage's stomachs while the two beg for their lives and watch each other die. The director makes sure that, even if you semi-decent onlookers looked away to avoid seeing it, you would accidentally see at least one section of the brutal murder as the camera does not cut away until both individuals have been stabbed multiple times. We are then lucky enough to see a mutilated girl crawl across a dining room floor, only to suffer in a pool of her own blood as some 11 year old Mormon kid finds the brutal scene and for some reason stands above her body as she finally spits blood, screams, and dies.

In my irrelevant opinion, which will have less than little effect on anything, this movie changed my life in a negative way. I have had difficulty sleeping, I've had random flashback type images pop into my head of people being tortured, and I find myself looking over my shoulder when walking out to the street at night from my house. Some people may say, "Wow, that movie was a good one if it left you that scared", and with this statement I do not disagree. The suspenseful elements of the movie did their job and I actually enjoyed that part, but the emotional scar that was imprinted on my subconscious was unnecessary.

In a society that is already deprived of empathy and compassion for those around us, I would think these types of movies would be discouraged by most and considered detrimental not only to an individual's sense of morality but also viewed as irresponsible to our community as a whole. I can see why we have so many heinous crimes all across our country and people don't take a second look when they are blipped across the television at a rate of 10 per minute on the 5 o' clock news. Long story short, if you do not feel at least a bit uncomfortable and even a bit juxtaposed in emotion when seeing something like this then you should consider taking a look at your self as a person.