Shit’s getting philosophical yyeeeEEEAAAHH!!!

What does it mean to be a bad person? Is it what you think, or the things you do? Or is it something deeper? The thought processes behind the end results, or is this the same question as ‘think’ vs. ‘do?’

1. What you Do

Let’s kick this off simple: do actions make you a bad person? I’d argue that it depends on the intent rather than the outcome. You see this kind of thing in shows like The Walking Dead. Kid grows up in shit-show world only knowing 20 people. Hits teen years and gets rebellious. Steals some food from the store and sneaks away from camp to eat it in peace. Unwittingly leads either marauders or the dead back to camp. Lotta people die. I cri evrytiem. The intent was “M’yeh! Fuck you, dad! I’ll do what I want!” The result was mommy’s miscarriage, a beaten-to-death old man, and a band of now starving survivors.

Was kid bad?

No, kid was not bad. To date, the only people I’ve heard say the kid was bad are old people who either (a.) have a completely different moral structure than the current norm in America (the current societal hub of the world), or (b.) they forgot what it’s like to be a teen altogether. Both of these are surprisingly probable. For ‘a.),’ in America, many of the generations that had “inherited the mantle” so to speak took a hard stance in rejecting the morality of the previous generation; imagining it to be backward and ignorant. You can view this in the exchange between Baby Boomers, Gen-X’ers, and Millennials. Option ‘b.)’ is plausible because well… old people (past a certain age) are just rotting corpses that take well enough care of themselves to make sure they rot as slowly as possible. It’s not a stretch to imagine an old person’s deteriorating brain simply just forgetting that a portion of its life happened.

So then why was kid not bad?

Kid was not bad because we know too much to think differently. Things like the butterfly effect theory, universal entropy, the green world theory show us that humans sometimes know just enough to know that we know basically nothing. Other times, humans just don’t even know what they don’t know, period. If a single-minded entity does not know the consequences of an action beforehand, how can they be held at fault? Well, the popular but (((unpopular))) consensus is “Wrong place, wrong time. tough break, kid.”

Incidentally, this is why I take issue with the statute in the US that ignorance of the law is not an excuse for breaking it. The reality is that the law…is fucking yhuge.

Not everyone should be expected to know every little statute and loophole that applies to EVERYTHING they do in their lives. But that’s a tangent.

2. What you think

This one is a definitely more plausible than the first (in my opinion), because this is a much more accurate indicator of how you, as a purely honest entity, feels. You can mediate your actions, sure. We’re trained by society from birth to do that; and I don’t think anyone, political left, or right, could disagree with that claim. However, how you think is a much, much different matter. Sure, it’s a common occurrence for people to think a negative, or disturbing thought, and then tell themselves “No,” and forget about it. But an honest person — one who is, above all, honest with themselves — will not deny the existence of these thoughts. They will grant these thoughts their peace, and mull over what they have to say. This, unsurprisingly, is one of the ways that unpopular opinions are formed; the other way being shear ignorance of what others think. And thus, a bad person is formed — a person who doesn’t conform to the ideas of society in a way that opposes society’s view in some aspect.

Do I agree with this?

No.

Following this logic implies that, because this individual was granted a particular perspective, and this individual then formed its own logical conclusions based on that perspective, then their opinions and beliefs are no more valid, or invalid than the commonly held opinions.

If you haven’t guessed by now, this approach is a little nihilistic — rejecting the notion that dissent against the norm is a “wrong” thing to do.

3. How you Think

Now, let’s get a little more racist yyyeeeeEeEEaAAAHHHH*

How you think — as in, how the chemicals in your brain interact, causing synapses to fire, causing thought processes, memories, and ideas to be burned into your hard drive. This idea is mondo nihilistic.

Because science currently hints at the idea that all living life is just a series of processes, and chemical reactions, that everything is predicable (given enough computing power). This effectively throws out the idea of free will entirely. Oh well, c’est la vie.

Unfortunately, this idea supports both theory #1, and #2. So, I guess we have a contest-winner. Because everything is a predictable process, we can accurately predict what people will think, feel, and do in a simulation universe. This means that what, and who you are was preordained by pure numbers, and there isn’t a damn fuckin’ thing you can do that won’t be calculable. Building on this, that means that the collective mass that forms society can also be predicted. You compare those numbers to an individual’s to see which ones are compatible, and which aren’t.

This is the one I have my money on.

Congrats! You’re a machine!

Of course, this is how seriously racist, slave-trade forming ideas form. And as a nihilist, I can only say… let’s just wait for science to give us a more definitive answer before we break out into full-on race wars.

 

* if you took this subheading seriously, and are also aware of the fact that is post is almost entirely satire, then you just may actually be…A BAD PERSON!!!1!

Teachers are full of shit

If you’ve ever been to college, then you’ve probably had ‘that’ professor. The one that deems it necessary to devote large swaths of class time (or even whole class periods) to talk about the nature of college, and what it should be about — broadening your horizons, and caring about what you learn and all that shit. Hell, I even write a paper for a fucking english class discussing grade inflation. And for the first three years I listened; still somewhat starry-eyed at the grand idea of “real” academics — the ivory towers, and the field researchers alike. Those thinking people that furthered the human race.

But that fantasy is bullshit.

I’ll tell ya where it got me. Stressed the fuck out. I felt pressured to be so invested in every topic that I studied, that I felt stressed out more than usual. And I don’t know how to do schoolwork anymore without being vested in some personal aspect. The fact is, you don’t need college calculus if you’re not a mathematician — math for the sake of math (what a fucking joke of a field), or a physicist — math for the sake of how shit would go down if a meteor decided that Earth looks better as an abstract art project. So why does every STEM major learn it? No clue. My best guess is that most sub-fields of math are applicable in at least one science. And instead of making those majors learn that math, they just say “fuck it, everyone knows math now.” And that’s not even my main issue. I’ve taken the same math class now twice, with a third on the way to finishing (god help me, I need to pass), and the only way that I’m even doing remotely OK is to basically just learn formulas. No understanding the reasoning behind it (and their is reasoning behind all math), because the professors are given so much material to cover that the class has to rip through it like a category 6 hurricane.  No understanding how it could be used in any field, because fuck you that’s why. My theory is that math-oriented types just get it because of the wiring in their brains (they just like rules), so whatever reasoning or logic that the math actually applies to is null and void in their eyes. So what’s a student who wants to learn the deeper aspects of math (which isn’t even my major) to do?

Well…what everyone else does. Learn the formulas and tactics long enough to pass the test, or the final exam, then forget it. Because, realistically, any normal kid who wanted to take more time to delve into the math would find themselves spending ALL of their time on school: the coursework + the extra work put into going deeper into past coursework. And what does that equal, class? A very dull boy. No one likes doing academic stuff ALL the time; unwinding is necessary. But if you take that time to unwind, you don’t have time to catch up on all your deep delving into the grand and mysterious intricacies of made up bullshit that started with people that predated the Greeks, and isn’t anything more than a human tool for counting shit.

Take it from a kid who lost a semester, and is currently sitting on four and a half years just to finish his undergrad: focus on your major; tolerate the fluff shit long enough to pass. While it’s true that you’re a less rounded person for it, at least you’re not throwing away thousands of dollars…

…oh look, it came around to money. Funny how everything in life seems to do that…

Why hipster-ism is moronic.

The scientific concept behind “Annihilation”

The movie “Annihilation,” directed by Alex Garland and starring Natalie Portman, is a brutal clusterfuck of the different approaches to explaining reality that we see in most art today.  From  daylight-horror to brutal nihilism, this film has all of the best worst ways of examining reality that that people like me consider a drug.

The movie follows the protagonist through the nightmarish, explicitly Darwinian expanse of wildlands in an undisclosed shoreline region of the US.  The movie, originally based off the the Southern Reach series, probably  takes place in a location somewhere near one of northern Florida’s coastlines.

I sat for hours afterword staring off into nothing and probably just looking like either a vegetable or a depressed test-lab monkey with downs contemplating the actual scientific logic behind this movie, as well as what the movie was trying to say as an art piece.  But we’re not talking about that because I’ve got something to say on the science.

One of the people I watched this movie with, and really the only one with an opinion on it besides “it was a good movie” postulated that the effects of the Shimmer, as much as it “refracted” the DNA of all biological lifeforms inside Area X (the effected zone), was actually just splicing the DNA of some animals with that of other animals also caught inside Area X.  I disagree with that on the basis that Tessa Thompson’s character in the film, a physicist, had an epiphany that the Shimmer did nothing more than “refract” DNA.  The definition of refraction is “the fact or phenomenon of light, radio waves, etc., being deflected in passing obliquely through the interface between one medium and another or through a medium of varying density.” – Google.

Now I don’t know about you, but that sounds like some pretty physics-y, science-y shit to me.  Nowhere in this definition does it talk about the interaction of separate waves interacting with one-another.  This is why I found my friend’s theory of gene splicing to be too unfounded.  Rather, the effect of the Shimmer is that it quite literally behaves like a light-refracting material.

Something like this:

The light emanating (the effected biological organisms) from inside the Shimmer (light-refractive material) is being refracted outwards and taking on a distorted new form.

This new form is completely random, and only mimics certain traits of different organisms by pure happenstance.  All organisms on Earth are, after all, are composed of the same four basic chemical compounds that link together to create DNA.  Furthermore, we know that many species’ DNA are similar, at least in some small way.  We humans are not so far off from mice, and rabbits.  While I’ve got no idea on how similar the DNA of a brown bear and that of a bird with vocal mimicry capabilities are, I’d hazard a guess and say not too terribly different that it would throw my theory out the window.

We see this in the case of the alligator with sharks teeth, and that hell-spawn of a genetically mutated bear, with the vocal capacity of a macaw and the facial structure of a senile old man who has recently suffered a massive stroke; most of his face drooping so far that he looks like a basset hound.  Interestingly, the bear lends further evidence to my idea of random, totally isolated instances of genetic modification.  The bears face, as ugly as it is, is key.  The skull is clearly elongated, and the neck shortened far past that of any known bear.  That alone casts doubt on the DNA-splicing theory.  Furthermore, the bear’s face is missing massive portions of skin, as well as the fleshy part of the nose (not the olfactory sensors that reside inside of the nasal socket in the skull).  However, the bear did not appear to be in any sort of pain.  It’s a safe bet that the Shimmer had effected the bear’s DNA in such a way that the genes attributed the growth of flesh in the facial region had somehow been changed in such a way that rendered it inactive.  Therefore, the modification of DNA in living organisms by the Shimmer is likely completely random.

There are, of course a few problems with my theory.  The randomness of the refraction doesn’t necessarily lend to my theory of separate modification in biological organisms.  The randomness of the effect could also be the random splicing of DNA between species; the spliced genes interacting in such a way to produce horrifically amazing results.  Though outside of some alien transmission factor, the spliced genes would have no obvious way of moving from organism to organism other than it simply being able to move about freely inside the Shimmer bubble.

Lastly, if the entire scientific exercise in the Shimmer had failed in the first place, the United States government could just call the whole thing fucked and do what they do best — bombing the absolute shit out of Area X, and torching what little is left — then the whole story kind of loses some of the weight it carried because of the Shimmer’s end-of-the-world-scenario capabilities.

How to become a good student

Being a good student requires passion!  A thirst for new knowledge!  Respect for the academic community and…

No.

All that bullshit is secondary.  All of that follows a key aspect of one’s self that is the primary motivator in being a good student.  What you have to do in order to be a good student is to care about what you’re studying.  Not just in your major.  In your entire academic career.  And that is why so many people who want to be good students ultimately fail in there search for the secret sauce of studentology.  Imagine trying to care about a basket-weaving class.  Unless you’re a 30 year old stay-at-home mom in search of your next hobby that you’ll care about for five seconds, you couldn’t.  So then, logically, it’s all about the planning.

What major do you care about?  Is it biology?  Computer engineering?  Bag-piping?  Whatever it is, you have to care about it.  So what happens if you care about something that will make you absolutely no money for the foreseeable future?  This is where a middle ground is needed.  You need to find a place where you can be only marginally happy with your major, and your parents can take only marginal solace in the fact that you aren’t a complete failure, and waste of their tuition money.  Care about making others better?  Want a degree in nursing?  Too bad, you’re getting a degree as an anesthesiologist’s assistant.  Do you get to help people?  Yes.  Do you do it directly?  Fuck no, you put people under for surgeries.  But at least you’re making $95,000 a year plus all the bells and whistles that come with medical insurance plans with hospitals.  And you’re parents still ask you to come to Thanksgiving.  And that why’s majors suck, even if you play your cards smart.  But there’s still another half of the conversation.

Your minor.  That think that you’re pretty sure serves no purpose other than to fill space so you aren’t spending all your parents’ money on alcohol and bad decisions.  Being a good student also means caring about this utter nonsense too.  This is where you get to have some fun though.  And unless you’re like me — taking a double minor so that you can later get a masters degree in it and avoid all of the crap you’re not good at that comes with majoring in it, then your minor means jack shit and you can fill it up with whatever whimsical subject you won’t even care about half-way through the first semester.  But that last part is important.  The caring part.

Make it something you care about.  Think basket-weaving is a good idea?  Unless you’re a hippy flowerchild, it’s not.  At all.  You’ll stop caring about it halfway through the semester, and stop going to class.  Which is all fine and dandy for those types of classes.  Until you’re rolling into a new semester, and you happen to pick the one professor who actually gives a shit about the class.  And is actually delusional enough to think that their students do too; and if not, they should.  Or else.  And believe you me, this ‘or else’ is a pretty fucking strong ‘or else.’  Absolutely, under no circumstances, should you ever sit down at the card table with your professor.  Because there’s a good chance they’re competent educators.  They will make your life a living hell, the likes of which makes Satan’s asshole clench just thinking about it.  Do not play the “I’ll just wait till the month of finals to start giving a shit” game.

So if you wanna minor in something you care about and likely won’t get tired of — like economics, or gender studies if you never grew out of your angsty teen phase — go for it.  And there’s really no metric for this one.  No statistic or “average salary” google search.  This one simply comes with knowing yourself.  Ironic isn’t it?  You go to college, partly to escape adulthood for four last precious years, and here I am telling you to go soul-searching.  It’s a load of shit, I know.  But the higher education system doesn’t place very nice with capitalism.  So you gotta do it.  Spend your summer thinking about it.  When you’re laying in bed, scrolling through porn and twitter, put the damn phone down for a second and think about what you actually like to do; other than hang out with people and go to parties so you don’t have to think about what you actually like to do.

And now you know who you are!  Isn’t that magical.

Now you have your major, and minor bases covered!  How does that tie into that other bullshit I mentioned in the beginning with that cheesy literary trope?  Well if you care about something enough, for long enough, then you’ll care about that other stuff.  Just got to your first semester’s first paper and you’ve been presented with the concept of academic references, and credible sources supporting your argument?  Now you have to deal with library databases?  What’s the point of these 40 page long studies about the effects of goldfish on the geothermic atmosphere?  Read it.  And read what its references were.  And read what that one’s references were.  You’ll eventually see the importance.  Congrats, now you know how the academic community debates things.  Don’t like learning?  Well, if not learning for the sake of learning, then learning for the sake of debating someone else.  And if you did the previous example correctly, you’ll want to debate them.  At least about the subject you care about.  See?  Everything I mentioned earlier was secondary to caring about what you study.

So if you want to have a meaningful experience in the higher education system, and not just a full four years of non-stop hedonistic self-satisfaction, followed by the next morning’s regrets, you’ll care about what you learn.

Is it weird to be weird?

You know that meme where it shows porn genres getting progressively more dark and disturbing, with the character to the right becoming more and more disheveled?  The idea behind it is that people who’re more and more detached from society are more and more fucked up in their sexual fetishes.

Is that normal?  Obviously not the characters and searches in the meme.  People who search for ‘vore’ are decidedly not ‘normal’, and I think most people agree; though ‘cuck’ seems to be climbing the PornHub search ladder these days.  I mean the drive that someone had to make that meme.  Was the desire originally fear that made that person make it?  The fear that one isn’t ‘normal’ – not someone who’d be accepted by society if society knew what they were really like.

Of course, everyone has that fear.  I’d be a pretentious asshole to assume otherwise.

So if that’s the case, then is to be ‘weird’ normal?  Would that defeat the purpose?  What’s considered normal by the ‘society’ that I’m talking about is rather not what’s inside of someone – all the weird fantasies and dark desires and hatreds and morbid thoughts, but rather what’s on the outside.  I suppose that would make society shallow.  But maybe that’s all it is, besides humans’ desire to feel connected with others of our kind.  What if society is a concept that is, by its very nature, shallow and skin-deep?

That’s not something to hate about it.  That would be like trying to hate the sky for being blue, or hating 4chan for being a cesspool of degenerate filth.  That’s just the name of the game; the way it is, regardless of what any one person wants it to be.  Society is, by nature, shallow.  And that’s ok.  Hating society is for hipsters, feminazis, and angsty teens who are about to become either 4chan faggots or tumblr feminazis.  People who’re way too bored and thoughtful for their own good.

The thing those groups have in common is a lack of self-awareness.  Not of one’s immediate self, but of the position of one’s self in the universe they live in.  The don’t realize that the thing they hate is them.  They make up society.  I do.  You do.  We’re base creatures, whose unfortunate drawback is that because we cannot see into others’ minds, we can’t understand them.  Really understand them; not empathize with them, but to understand them – the things they do and think, and why they do and think them.  Empathy in its truest definition doesn’t exists, because the human brain is too complicated to understand itself; let alone others’.  The human condition, I suppose you could call it.

So that’s the case: the only reason that society is as shallow as it is is because we as humans are cursed with individuality.  This individuality makes us fear and distrust and hate others, because we cannot perceive the motivations driving others of our kind.  Does individuality make us alone?  If we’re alone, then what’s the deal with society existing at all?  Is it because we fundamentally don’t like the idea of being alone?

If we are alone, then no one can be ‘weird’, because there is nothing else with which to compare one’s self to.

But this answer still negates the simple fact that society, without a doubt, exists.  And there’s fuck-all any one of us can do to stop it from existing short of a mass-extinction of the human race.  So, here we are at an impasse: society considers certain people weird based on external observations, even though society itself is a farce because we are all alone; incomparable.  But society still exists, because it’s clearly an observable system/network/whatever-the-fuck.

At this point, I’ve already accomplished what the title implies I’ve set out to do.  No, it’s absolutely, completely normal to be weird, because there’s nothing with which to reliably compare one human to.  This even negates the idea of being ‘weird’ at all.  But the impasse remains – what is society?  Is it real? Is it not? Is it a kind of shadow in the open door of your closet at night that only has power because you’ve given it the power of fear?  Don’t bullshit me.  I know you know exactly what the fuck I’m talking about.

Society is ________.

I’ll have to keep searching for an answer to that fill-in-the-blank…

 

This argument is based off of a few ideas:

1.) The meme was inspired by a fear of one’s own abnormality.

2.) That society is nothing but a farce.  This one is finicky.  It could be viewed from many different lenses: an economist’s viewpoint, a psychologist’s, a sociologist’s, etc..  I suppose my version of society is just an amalgamation of everything I know about those and other viewpoints that I could never list off all of (i.e. – entirely subjective, and flawed).

3.) That anyone really even hates society as much as they just hate the concept of it, and whatever threat it represents to them as an individual.

4.) That humans really aren’t comparable at all, given all of our experiences and traits; God-given and world experience.  Hell, it could be that you’re religious and the term “God-given” has literal meaning to you (it does for me).  What I mean is your beliefs presupposing the falsity of the the claim “humans are alone.”

5.) Etc.. I’m tired of poking holes in my own claims.  You find your own faults in the argument.

I love you Mom, and I would do anything in the world for you; including leave it.

I’ve never held much credence to the idea that my life is worth something.  I’m a Christian, and I know that at the beginning of time God decided a plan for me.  I don’t know whether that’s to kill myself or die by another’s hand.  But since I was a child, I’ve been protective of others.  Those around me, those I care about mean everything in the world to me.  I know that if I die, it will hurt them in some capacity.  But I think that under the right circumstances, my death can bring some meaning to it.

I was listening to a creepypasta reading on youtube, where a SAR guy was recounting his weird experiences in the wilderness.  I got to thinking about SAR in general.  Like all those types of jobs, it’s glamorized to be dangerous and sexy and cool.  But past all that…  I decided to google some of their patches and insignias on google images and a line one of them gave me pause.

 

…So that others may live…

 

 

I would gladly throw down my life in the face of Hell itself if it meant that I could save the ones I love.

I love you Mom.

I love you Dad.

I love you Devin.

I love you Morgan.

I would fight a thousand wars, and face a thousand deaths, and burn in a thousand fires in a thousand hells for you.  I would give you the world…if I could.  But I can’t.  So I hope that my service will suffice.

I know that everyone means something to someone.  And if I can save just one more person, then my life and my death is worth it, every last minute of it.  All the pain and all the joy, and the sadness and hate and joy, and the contentment…and the love.

They used to say that to love meant to be willing to throw down ones life for another.  Now they say that love is just a chemical reaction to make me horny, and breed.

But I stand fast when I say that to me, love means to be willing to die and to suffer in the place of another.

Jesus Christ of Nazareth truly was the loving God that the bible speaks of.

Lord, if my time comes and I am not worthy of your Heaven, then know that I am content burning in your Hell…

…so that others may live.

update…

It’s uh… It’s been a while.  Still no viewers.  Not surprised.  After reading back my stuff, I’m utterly disgusted.  But I’m given to understand that most writers and their writing share this relationship (I use the term ‘writer’ loosely).

---

Let’s see.

I’m in college now.  That’s the biggest thing.

I’m a freshman and I pretty much failed first semester.  So I’ve been having to get my shit together this semester.

I drink way more than I should, given my family’s history of substance abuse. [more on this next]

I smoke a pack of cigs every two days.  God help me.

I have a cushy job at a country club, where I get paid $8.25/hour to do nothing.

I’ve gotten back into reading.

Lovecraft is my favorite writer.

I’ve started a book collection.

I’m also into philosophy.

All this makes for a pretty dark person.

All of this considered, I’m in a better place mentally.

---

 

I’ve decided to start using my site again.  Just for experimentation.  I’ve got a few short stories that are probably garbage but maybe someone might eventually like one.  I just need to write.  It helps me think.

Thoughts might be shared.

Stories Might be shared.

Me being active again MIGHT be a reality.

We’ll see.

Starting a New Series. My Short Stories

Existence is Pain

 

Oh God.  It hurts.  It hurts me.  It hurts me so badly.  In only one way though.  The thing hurts me in only one way, like it’s picking how I hurt.  It’s a searing pain that hurts no matter how tightly I shut it out.  But it feels as though the thing was meant to hurt me; in the way that only it can.  Like a sort of god.  A god of that pain.  But – it isn’t alone.

There are others.  Gods of their own pain that hurt me in different ways, like the god that make me feel like cold.  It’s cold all of the time; it started at my head and slowly made its way down to my toes.  And I can’t shake it off no matter how tightly I bundle myself.  I can’t feel anything other than pain.

Another thing hurts me.  It’s sending pulses through me, disrupting my thought.  And I cannot predict when the pulses come.  It’s so random; in small, rapid bursts.  No – there are many of these gods.  So many.  They all send pulses through me that make me ache, and feel nothing but pain.

There is another.  It hurts me with each convulsion of being.  This pain is invading.  Like something inside me that should not be there.  An amorphous thing.  It flows into me and fills me with non-stop burning.

I cannot take this.  I – I’m doing something.  I don’t know what it is I’m doing, but it’s also hurting me.  It hurts like the many gods but it hurts in a new way.  A way that is sharp, and vibrates through my core.  And the more I do it, the more it hurts.  I want to stop, but I can’t.  It feels like the hurt is making me do it; and making me cause myself hurt.  It’s an endless cycle of hurt.  I cannot remember what came before, but now all that I feel is pain.

Was I always like this?

Did I just always feel pain; never knowing anything else?

I cannot remember.  Like a wall where I just stop.

Oh God, the pain!

Why am I?

 

“You have nothing to worry about, Mrs.  Flynn.  Your son is perfectly healthy.” The doctor said to the hospital’s newest member of the maternal ward.

Crimson Peak (Not the usual but, meh, fuck it.)

Crimson Peak is rated on IMDB a whopping *Drum-roll*…..6.8/10……  What.  The.  Fuck…..

When I watched this film for the first time (granted it was only several minutes ago), I was blown away.  Not by the film itself for reasons I will get onto later, but the fact that the movie was not inspired by an earlier novel.  No, this film actually inspired the novel!  Check Amazon!  This film is so heavily laden with metaphor and foreshadowing use, it practically wreaks of modern author, though the film is post modern.  I believe this is why our friends at IMDB looked so harshly on this work.  And to back this up, all you have to do is look at the awards its won.  It was nominated for 18 awards, and you know which one it won?  The fucking “Fright Meter” award.  What the fuck is that?  The film isn’t even that scary.  True, it is categorized as a horror.  But that’s not in the ‘now’ sense of horror.  It’s labelled ‘horror’ in the old sense of the genre.  Like modern-and-contemporary-writing old.  For anyone in the future who reads this (not likely anyone, but still) and also has read older works, and you’ve also seen the film, you’ll know exactly what I’m talking about.  For those of you who haven’t, let me explain.

The film Crimson Peak is about a girl who we can assume is either just now coming of age (marriage), or has been for not very long.  She is an aspiring author who, as we come to find out, is trying to get her first novel published.  The genre of said novel is, surprise surprise, horror.  The editor our protagonist is speaking to tells her that her story needs a bit of romance.  There’s your first foreshadowing.

Our lovely young protagonist is an American.  At first thought, this comes as no surprise to us American viewers watching an American movie.  But then comes along our spider.  The European entrepreneur; clad in black and with hair to match.  And then we see the two together in a scene.  Now we are seeing some unmistakable contrast.  The young, beautiful, brightly dressed, American of the new world next to the older, dark haired, darkly dressed, darker eyed European of the old world.  Now we get more foreshadowing, as well as metaphor, and symbolism.

HOW THE FUCK IS THIS FILM A 6.8!?!?  FUCK YOU IMDB!

The next part is cliche, but that’s the fun part.  The older European seduces the younger American.  The old looks to the new, and as we come to find out, for more than romance.  Money.  Our protagonist’s father is rich you see.  But our older European friends want that money.  Well… lets just say that daddy had a bit of a spill in the tub… multiple times… repeatedly.  Ok, so daddy’s dead, and all that inheritance goes straight to our new little orphan.  So what does that give us?  The old is preying on the naive new for life sustenance.  Sound familiar?  Vampires.

Its a little far-fetched, I know, but that’s really my interpretation of it.  Ask any literature professor.  So that’s all this story was.  Its a retelling of any older (classic) scary story.  And a damn good retelling in my book.  Its like the main character says when recounting the ghosts in her fiction novel: “The ghosts are metaphorical”.  I think my favorite part of the movie was that line.  And you can tell that the actress is stressing the line.  I think the director wanted us to know that that line was also commenting on the overlying story.  In short: meta-commentary.  So what have we learned from all this?

Those assholes at IMDB need to pick up a fucking book once in a while.