‘The serial killer genre is a monster movie without the supernatural’

Spengler writes about 9/11’s legacy of horror and pop culture:

The serial killer genre is a monster movie without the supernatural. It’s a close cousin, to be sure, but the difference is that reason and procedure invariably catch the monster. In that sense, it’s a bit like the science fiction/monster films of the 1950s in which the monster always has a fatal weakness. The first horror films in which the monsters win came during the Vietnam era: The Omen, and Rosemary’s Baby. Excessive violence is repulsive, to be sure, but the horror genre, with its implication of an absent God, is especially pernicious.

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The problem is, he admits to commenters eventually that he hasn’t actually watched a horror movie all the way through for years.

The reasons why would have been a more honest essay — although probably not as philosophically and stylistically satisfying to write or read.

Did the world really need another “I’m a conservative who finds pop culture so disgusting I don’t consume it, but that doesn’t stop me from writing about my disgust with my quill pen” essay?

Another article about “9/11 movies” tries something different, and doesn’t quite succeed either, although I agree with the writer about the inclusion of Donny Darko and Memento.

The nitpicking commenters there lack imagination: I’ve said before that my favorite “9/11 movie” is The Thing From Another World, which predates the actual event by decades.

I bought United 93 but never removed the plastic. The original Thing is my United 93 and that’s probably just as well for my (cough) mental health.

PS: someone at NewsReal had an interesting comment on The Brood, which I’d filed away as another “killer kidz” flick of the 70s/80s, but one with Cronenberg’s distinctive stamp: he was going through an ugly custody battle at the time, and still in his Polanskian “apartment buildings are sinister” phase.

However, the commenter, while acknowledging that, also calls it a satire of 70s self-help craze as well, so I might have to give it another spin.