Motus Mentis

I may look and sound pretty tough, but actually I’m a pushover. Beneath my gruff and menacing exterior I’m a sentimental old softie, a big ball of moosh. I’m particularly susceptible to movies: the tear-jerkers move me to unseemly and lachrymose upwellings of empathy, and the scary ones just beat the hell out of me. I hate it.

To be manipulated so easily, and so predictably, annoys me no end, and consequently, I avoid both genres. I’ll gladly go to see an idiotic comedy, or a documentary, or a special-effects extravaganza, but you’d have to drag me bodily (which is no easy task) to a horror movie or a romantic tragedy.

So I don’t know what I was thinking when I read this post by our pal Jeffery Hodges, in which he links to, and describes the unsettling effect of, a short and scary item on YouTube. He gives ample warning: like me, he doesn’t like horror flicks, and this one gave him the fantods. But I felt in need of a break, and rather than sensibly getting back to my work, I went ahead and watched the damn thing. It produced precisely the unwelcome effect I ought to have expected.

The worst part is that there is nothing, really, about this video that ought to bother a grizzled old codger like me. I’ve been through some pretty nasty scrapes in my day, and when genuine crises arise, I usually handle myself pretty well, and give as good as I get. This picture relies for its effect on all the usual tricks: jump cuts, creepy music, and the juxtaposition of the ordinary with the mysteriously dreadful. The story, to the extent that you can get much of a story told in nine minutes and fifty-six seconds, is actually quite silly and barely coherent.

But there it is, damage done. Go have a look yourself.