“Come Out Here And TAKE Your Medicine!”
Added from GIPHY, copyright to Warner Brothers Studios
Oh, that line from Jack to little Danny has so much backstory. It captures how incredibly evil a phrase can become when the motivation isn’t to heal someone, but to control them.
Added from Tenor, copyright to Warner Brothers Studios
Recall the scene: Danny is simply running from his father, scared for his mother, unable to comprehend what turned his own protector into a monster. It is the ultimate betrayal—the hand that should be saving you is the one holding the axe. It is chilling, but only when you really get the message: sometimes the "cure" is just a cover for the cruelty.
Let’s step away from the heavy administrative audits for a moment and discuss something near and dear to this family: horror movies. Books, shows, movies, plays, music—the macabre has always been mesmerizing to us.
While often dismissed by the "proper" crowd as mere "fluff" or trash, the horror genre serves a vital psychological purpose. It is not just entertainment; it is a controlled laboratory for the human soul.
By voluntarily engaging with fictional terrors, we are practicing the emotional regulation and mental fortitude required to face the genuinely unexplainable depravities of the real world—the shadows that entities like John Wayne Gacy represent.
The "Vaccine" of Recreational Fear
Horror functions much like a vaccine. By exposing the psyche to a weakened or fictionalized version of "The Poison," the mind builds up its immune response. This is often referred to as "Recreational Fear."
When we watch a slasher film, our bodies experience a physiological fear response—increased heart rate, cortisol spikes, and adrenaline—while our rational minds remain aware that we are safe. This controlled exposure allows us to map the boundaries of our own fear. It teaches us how to breathe through the dread and stay present when the "vibration" of a situation turns dark.
The past year has been my own personal experiment with these responses, though it has been far less "recreational." But because of the training, when the cognitive collapse threatened to set in, I had the scaffolding to remain standing.
Mapping the Shadow
Real-world horrors are terrifying precisely because they exist in the "Nothing" between the rules of society. They are system failures of the human spirit. Horror movies provide a vocabulary for these failures. They give a face to the faceless "Static" and allow us to rehearse our reactions to the "Wrongness" of the world.
If you cannot handle seeing the raw strain of field surgery in a fictional setting, how can you expect to maintain your composure when you see the metaphorical arm ripped clean from the body of your community?
From a less gory angle, these stories strip the "True Motivation" of evil of its disguises. We learn to recognize the "Constant" patterns of predatory behavior before they manifest in our carnal reality. By studying the fictional monster, we become better at spotting the real ones—especially the ones hiding behind polished desks, "Principal of the Year" awards, or "peace prizes."
Fortitude Through the Final Girl
The archetype of the "Survivor" or the "Final Girl" is a powerful blueprint for the "broken but moving" individual. These characters are usually the ones who have grokked the reality of their situation first.
They aren't the strongest, and they certainly aren't the most "obedient" to the old rules. They are simply the ones who identified the "Slope of the Danger" and adapted their math to survive it. It is as simple as refusing to freeze. Watching these characters move from victims to survivors proves that even when the world is "ugly to each other," and even when the "Boss is tired," the human variable can still find a way to navigate the darkness.
Not Everything Ends Happily Ever After
Raise your hand if you’ve seen a movie and at the very end you simply go, “Wait, WHAT?”
The Mist takes the cake for me. It is a movie that wanted to show the absolute bottom of hopelessness. I’m not a fan of how the movie "wrapped it up" while the story "left it hanging," but that is the art of it.
Real life does not always give you the hero’s ending. Sometimes, the fog doesn't lift when you want it to. But our job as consumers of these stories is to see them for what they are. They aren’t all Rubber (absolute absurdity), but sometimes you might find a Feast for your senses. The lesson isn't to despair at the bad ending; the lesson is to recognize that the ending hasn't happened yet, so long as you are still watching.
Come out here and take your medicine. It might just save your life.
You might see a billboard like this…
See y’all at Spooky Empire! Feb 7 & 8 at the North Charleston Convention Center (Come say hi to Honoring Julian — we’ll be the ones not hiding from the monsters.)
