The Horror Few See

Horror is all around us, yet much of it is not seen that way. This is not a new conceit, not even for me to speak of it per se. The example that prompted me to write about this topic today was the young girl from M. Night Shyamalan's Signs. If you have not seen the movie all of the way through you want to stop reading now. I am going to spoil the ending.

Everyone knows the immediately scary bits in Signs. There is the alien skulking around the farm, the one caught in Reddy's house, the video from Brazil, and of course when the aliens try to get into the house culminating in the attack by one of the aliens. The demise of this alien is set in motion long before it's arrival in the house, long before its likely arrival in proximity to Earth even. For whatever reason, miracle, born with a hypnotic suggestion from her mother, or psychic precognition ability of her own, Bo Hess set all of those glasses of water everywhere in the house. I've never seen mention of the pure creepiness of this methodical, instinctive--or we are left to assume it wasn't thought out--process. Think about it. For years this little girl has been finicky about her water. Things start getting weird at the farm and around the world, and she begins obsessively leaving the water in glasses everywhere.

Somewhere between the unblinking irrational quality of the obsession and the inevitability with which it was perpetrated and then exonerated lies the real horror to this situation. It's easy to sit back and consider that the whole scenario is, well, almost heart warming. For starters it saves Merrill and Morgan--though Morgan also has his own deal going--and it's just a part of the overall miracle. Bo is cute, though on the odd side of cute given her I saw a monster can I have a glass of water in the middle of the night attitude. Back to Morgan for a moment. His asthma is a saving grace finally, but it lacks all of the qualities that make Bo's hand in the events so outré, so unnatural. It's like comparing luck to brilliant forethought ten steps ahead of the crucial event.

Here's a final thought to ponder, would it be creepier yet to discover Bo knew the importance of having that water there at that time and hid it all those years behind an intricate web of what essentially are lies and misdirection?

Mood: thoughtful.

Music: Gonna Buy Me A Dog by The Monkees and Breathless by Quiet Riot.

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