I do have to kind of chuckle with how my life has come full circle. I learned a lot about life from books and movies, especially other people’s reactions to the same material I absorbed independently. And I’m old enough to have rented and watched the original C.H.U.D. movie, not having to suffer through someone explaining to me that in that movie a CHUD is a Cannabilistic Humanoid Underground Dweller.
And not an insufferable prick like it means in today’s lingo.
Books and movies are a sort of safe zone for self exploration. A good writer will guide you to an intended view without spoiling it and making it too obvious. At least not too early. A complex villain with some nuance is far more interesting than an underground dweller that by name we know solely exists to eat human flesh. And psychological horror has really hit its stride here in the 2020s.
In Cabin In The Woods, Drew Goddard not only has the standard horror movie characters, they are an integral part of a complex ritual to appease the Lovecraftian elder gods and return them to slumber until the next timeline the ritual needs to be performed. You’ve got your stoned out fool, the jock, the brainy nerd, the ditzy hot girl. And the final girl who is the pure virgin. In old horror slasher, the tropes were pretty simple. Establish that the jock is a self centered prick and prime the audience pump for his upcoming death. He’s an asshole. It’s not just OK to want him to be a victim. It’s often a goal to get the audience hopes up that his death should be excessively gory, painful, and humiliating.
The Cabin in the Woods jock does fit in the in movie narrative of the ritual sacrifice jock. And being Chris Hemsworth aside, you do get some character development that shows a good side. His sole existence isn’t stuffing nerds in the school gym locker and pinching cheerleaders butts. He reads philosophy and is willing to make sacrifices. There’s nuance and complexity that gives you hope that is dashed when he meets his end. The final girl along with the rest of the planet doesn’t exactly succeed. Score another writing win for Goddard and a reason it’s no surprise that the Project Hail Mary script was so solid.
Now, an exceptionally annoying aspect of modern intent discourse is the walking on eggshells being forced down your throat. This, like patriotism has been projected upon us by those who require the good guy and bad guy to be obvious. I said Superman is a bad movie because the Lex Luthor chud supreme character is a badly written character. I said it first, therefore I must be right. And since I only talk with my friends about chuds being misunderstood I have no desire to actually think about things for myself. And in the meantime I’m fine with thinking true patriotism is neo-nazis disrupting pride parades and drag queen book readings. (Etc…) What they’re really messaging - oh shit, I might be a chud. And this movie threatens my feewings and since Fox News told me to hate it, that’s so much simpler to just ape out a movie is bad. Often even sight unseen.
That’s far too much background for the movie of the day to discuss. Obsession has proven to have remarkable staying power and does not have the oversimplified Character A good, character B bad plot boredom. In Obsession a lonely young man has a crush on a girl most consider way out of his league. Nikki has friend zoned him and he wants more. Given the opportunity to make a wish that changes her into becoming obsessed with him he unleashes a curse. She’s no longer just the pretty girl he was obsessed with. She’s a chaotic force of destruction that ends up making his life miserable in a matter of about an hour of the movie’s run time. The goods are delivered for required horror movie mayhem, but there’s a central question about the morality of the main character Bear. Is he a good man that got carried away or is he a disgusting chud?
Both characters are obsessed with each other, hence the movie title. One is willfully obsessed based on presumed nature and socialization. The other is forced into it, and I’m even going to admit to use some loaded language here - what appears to be some sort of supernatural rape. My own bias aside and having flagged which team I’m on, if you watched the movie , what message did you get?
Team Bear is a chud - glad he got what was coming to him.
Team Curse is the villain. Making supernatural wishes never goes well and everyone’s a victim.
Team let me watch the movie again when it comes to streaming and talk to my friends and see what they think about it subjectively. Which could end up being messy if someone gets insistent that they are 100% right. Claiming objectivity over something that needs to be examined more closely than people may want to.
I’d like to be on Team watch it again except I already have in a way. You can search YouTube for reaction videos. Something like “Obsession Explained”. I’ve already seen some commentary indicating the video author encourages you to leave a comment with what you think about the movie and why. I find myself pretty solidly still in the Bear is a chud camp. That’s the message I got when I first watched it. I didn’t see anything else that changed my mind. But I sat my ass down and actually put effort into thinking about other people’s perspectives.
And that’s probably why it’s a good movie. You can think about it beyond a knee jerk reaction. One answer is not necessarily right or wrong. And if you don’t try to force your opinion on me as fact, I don’t really care what you think in regards to changing my mind. I in turn can respect your opinion.
It’s a movie, and not a culture war life and death struggle in reality. Conspiracy gematria narratives a decade ago absolutely were a culture war reality life and death struggle. The screenwriters were terrible. Everything was doom and gloom end of the world unless you pay me gibberish. And people fell for it. They didn’t want to be challenged. They wanted to hear that Freemasons were ruining their lives by occult ritual because they could at least have someone lower on the social ladder to complain about. You can’t get much lower than a fictional scapegoat to blame your problems on. These people didn’t want a solution. They didn’t want to listen about how housing prices and unaffordable health care were ruining lives. They just wanted to not be the victim of the chud. And nothing said I’m not a chud like kicking the school nerd before stuffing him in the locker and BEING the chud. And they found their obsession. A magical gambling solution to the financial woes. Gambling on sports AND being an intellectual badass. Now that Nikki has woken up from her cursed hell, she has to deal with the aftermath of the world you left behind.
Option #4 - Team shitty gematria narratives never solved anything.
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