Horror Movies Are America's Response to Post-Modernism

Growing up in Chicago’s Democratic machine, I was taught “believe none of what you hear and only half of what you see.” The newspaper shills told lies. The campaign mouthpieces told lies. The cronies and hacks told lies. Usually the politicians tried to avoid having the lies come directly from their own mouths.

If all you know about a person are the words that they speak, you don’t know much about that person.

The only way to judge a person is based on their actions. You know exactly what a politician is made of by watching his time in office. Crooked politicians adore the fact that so many people value words and so few people pay attention to actions. Senator Obama supported war, helped trash the Constitution, and did little leading as a junior US Senator. An uniformed electorate gave him a promotion, largely because they adored his words.

It can be no surprise that big government advocates, commonly socialists at their core, fancy post-modern ideas. It’s an assault on the idea that man can use logic to better understand, to grow, to improve his surroundings. Post-modernism informs its adherents that nothing is real, or at least what is real cannot be known. There is no truth. The Bitcoin Manifesto Allan J Stevo Best Price: $7.54 Buy New $12.73 (as of 05:50 UTC - Details)

In dismissing truth, one can introduce a flexibility of logic that is anti-logical and anti-rational. If there is no truth, then “is” doesn’t mean “is” and everything you think you see can be debated to the point of exhaustion, without creating any elucidation. You can imagine why socialists might feel so good around post-modernism. The bad logic of socialism can’t be proven or disproven because really, nothing can be proven from the perspective of a post-modernist.

In the absence of reality, and a pursuit of truth, in the midst of that hazy post-modern milieu, we are left with an appeal to authority (the democratic voter, the democratic state, the courts in a democratic state), an appeal to a higher, superhuman being (the state, democracy, and its adherents), might makes right (majority rule), and numerous other rhetorical crutches that make the actual logic behind any words unimportant and make fleeting feelings much more important.

The film Hell Fest (2018) tends toward the thriller genre of horror, evoking suspense, rather than leaning on gory, pornographic aspects of horror. It is an illustration of an American response to post-modernism. Many horror films deftly play with the question of reality.

In Hell Fest, a group of friends goes to a theme park on Halloween that appears to be just a theme park, but is in fact a deathtrap full of unaware people being terrorized by a serial killer. What is factual is not immediately apparent to the characters.

The question of “What is reality?” figures prominently in the film. This film, and many horror movies ask and often answer that question. For example, when you are standing next to your friend who ceases to live, you can unquestionably know that the ax murderer that has just caused your friend to stop living is real. You can unquestionably know that the ax is real. You can unquestionably know that the life or your friend has really come to an end.

The words spoken before or after mean little compared to the act. It doesn’t matter how unreal you think the ax or the ax murderer is. If you’re even entertaining that idea of whether the ax is real you are missing the point and not even asking the right questions. You’re being distracted by a pointless discussion, convincing you to not pay attention to the most pressing issues of how to survive or how to thrive. And before you know it, you’re dead.

At least that’s the simple logic reproduced in many horror movies. It’s also the simple logic of life. Pointless pseudo-philosophy after pseudo-philosophy, offer little or no illumination on our existence, encourage distraction from the most pressing issues of life, and before you know it you’re dead.

Dedicating time to the act of questioning the ability to know reality is to spend time in a philosophy of disutility that is of questionable use to anyone, save possibly the ax murderer that wants to steal precious minutes of your already short life from you.

The world is full of metaphorical ax murderers ready to steal minutes from you, aided by charlatans seeking to confuse you about what you know. Amazon.com Gift Card i... Buy New $15.00 (as of 12:45 UTC - Details)

Horror movies play on the dramatic irony of the audience knowing something with certainty and the character playing right into the danger.

“Watch out. Can’t you see this coming!” is a common internal response from a viewer of a horror movie.

The watching of horror films is practice for real life, and this time of year offers a great excuse. Often there is truth. Often there is logic. Often there is a tendency for exhibitions of common sense to be helpful. Often there is a simple morality that is beneficial to those who follow it. Not all horror movies are like that, of course.

There are even post-modern horror movies that pervert this fascinating, attack on post-modernism. Horror films tend to respond to post-modernism in a way that simplifies arguments using the most basic human experience of life and death.

Hell Fest does this particularly well. It has realistic dialogue. It has a playful atmosphere that feels akin to being out with friends for the night. The heroine has that “Something’s not right” vibe repeatedly and around her are lots of people seeking to convince her that everything is right, lots of friends saying that it’s not real. No one believes any of it, but her, until it’s too late.

And this is one of the cruxes of American horror films – the dramatic tension between those who know that something is real, who know that something is amiss, and those who refuse to admit the reality until it’s too late. The horror film victim knows at the moment of their last breath that what they dismissed as false was among the most real things that they have encountered in life.

Here, in this very American of genres, we have a denunciation of post-modernism. We have a play on reality and falseness, depicted in a way more deeply understood than what the finest philosophers could offer as retort to the slippery deceit of the post-modernists and the oppressive socialism for which they provide intellectual cover.

The Best of Allan Stevo