A Comedy of Terrors

The biggest laugh I'm likely to have this week: 10 Horror Movies For Conservatives To Watch This Halloween:

Halloween is almost upon us and you're probably thinking, "Gee, wouldn't it be great to kick back on the couch and rent a few conservative horror flicks for the big night?"

Er, yeah... So what, exactly, counts as a "conservative" horror movie? Roger and Me? Reds? (And perhaps more importantly, is there a list of "liberal" horror movies anywhere?). Let's have a look at this treasure trove of conservative horrors, and see what insights into the conservative Id we can glean (and laugh at)...

Cloverfield apparently qualifies as a "conservative" horror movie because ordinary people reacted well and the military fought bravely. And it was scary and well done. Right. Moving along...

The Dead Zone is deemed a "conservative" horror movie because..., well, the writer doesn't actually say. I'd probably disqualify it, though, because there's a scene where the hero has sex with a married woman who isn't his wife. Sounds like a stinking liberal commie fascist to me...

Now this is funny: The Exorcist is a "conservative" horror movie because it features

self-sacrificing priests who are fighting spiritually against true evil. That's very rare for Hollywood, where members of the clergy are habitually treated as drunkards, hypocrites, perverts, and villains.

Somebody should tell these guys about art imitating life and all that stuff...

And while they're learning about mimesis, perhaps somebody could explain irony to them as well. Because apparently The Mist (2007), another "conservative" horror flick, is about "how quickly human beings can become primitive again when they're isolated, alone, and in danger." I tell ya, the jokes write themselves around here...

I won't go through the whole list, but here's a nice little gem: The Tripper (2006) will please "conservative" horror movie goers with the "sweet, sweet joy of watching a guy in a Ronald Reagan mask taking an ax to dirty, drug addled hippies throughout the movie." Take the whole family!

I'm certain that others must have thought of this before me, but it seems like the modern "conservative" is, in many ways, the ultimate post-modernist. I mean, with the way they politicize every fucking mundane detail in life, their penchant for ignoring primary texts and relying on interpretations of them, all that crap. They'd make Foucault and Derrida proud...