Fear and Loathing in Austin

What if a horror movie really scared you? Sounds like stoner philosophy, I know, but this thought really gripped me last night. I've never had a serious problem with being scared by horror movies; I love them because they are twisted, fantastic, and fun. But what if the nominal emotion they are created to elicit -- terror -- was actually felt?

What if the exposition was good enough to fully engage the brain and cause it to forget that it was watching a movie? What if the screen was big enough and the sound system was awesome enough that the experience of watching it was indistinguishable from living it? In this scenario, in which the brain is open enough to swallow the horror movie whole, I suppose it wouldn't even have to be a stellar example of the genre to do the trick. Almost any horror movie, were it real, could induce bodily terror. I'm talking about ancient flight-or-fight signals: paralysis, dilated pupils, muscle contractions, that feeling that your skin is seeking refuge inside your body, the involuntary peeling back of the lips, the cringing cower of a protective position, and then the full-throated uncontrolled scream that sirens into the air until whatever stalks you is dispatched or tears open your flesh and devours your life.

I think, given the right movie at the right time, everyone's had a small simulacrum of this experience, but I doubt too many people experience the full onslaught of terror during a horror movie, or nobody would ever want to watch one. Do people who hate watching horror movies actually get this feeling? Other genres have the ability to elicit real emotions: comedies really make us laugh, dramas really make us cry, romances really make us swoon, and porn flicks really make us horny. Surely, horror films must really horrify us occasionally. I don't know whether to feel proud or numbed by the fact that I've never given myself over to a horror movie enough to feel the real emotion -- or maybe I have, and the experience was so negative that I've blocked it out? 

We're too good at avoiding the body-consuming repercussions of true fear, I guess. Good for keeping one's wits about them in a scary situation. Tough road for horror films that aim high.

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I don't want to say that Saturday was an emotionally and physically taxing day, but on Sunday, V and I were so zombified that we managed to start a real grease fire. She was making bacon -- because she is awesome -- and I was trying to make tea -- because I'm too wimpy for coffee. The stove burner was on under the tea kettle. V pulled the bacon out of the oven, moved the kettle aside, and put the tray on the lit burner. The grease started to smoke, so I pulled the strips of bacon off, but we were puzzled as to why it was still smoking (couldn't see the burner). As I pulled free the last two pieces, the grease caught fire. 

My instinct was to pull the tray off the lit burner. I did this with my bare hand. Obviously not a good move. As I ran my fingertips under cold water, V fortunately found some baking soda in the cupboard, tore it open with a knife, and doused the flames. If there's one way in which the public school system didn't fail either of us, it's that we both knew well enough not to toss water on a grease fire. It turned out to be a small domestic event, but as I watched her dust the pan with baking soda and saw how quickly and safely it smothered the flames, I was filled with this overwhelming relief -- relief that a critical piece of instinctive ignorance was quashed in our youth, relief that we didn't burn down the apartment when we were in our underwear, and relief that I had time to rescue the bacon before we poured Arm & Hammer all over it.

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For the record, I hate Hunter S. Thompson. I think his scatterbrained prose is a drag and his discipline-free approach to journalism a scourge that has spawned wave after wave of talentless imitation. I know this opinion marks me as a square, like a Republican who can't understand what all the fuss is about punk music, but I figure it's only an opinion since I'm certainly in no position to squash the legend of HST, and I believe I'll keep it.