Yes, the movie Insidious: I just saw it. This movie is really scary, but not in the way you might expect. What’s really terrifying about this movie is how it depicts a fantasyland that doesn’t exist, and I’m not talking about hauntings and demons, either. What’s so scary about this movie is that it shows us what ought to be real but isn’t anymore: the ability of a teacher to live in a nice house with a wife who raises their three kids, but doesn’t also have to work a full-time job.
It used to be the case that people could work regular jobs and support a family. It doesn’t seem like it anymore. Especially in California, where this movie looks like it was shot, the idea of a teacher buying not one, but two nice, big, upper-middle-class houses one after the other is just fantasy. But this is supposed to be a horror movie, and it’s the reality that’s way scarier than the world of the movie. Hey, I’ll take a world with hauntings and demons and stuff if people can afford nice homes and pay their bills, and move somewhere else when they have to, easily selling their last house and finding a new one in a matter of days. That looks positively comforting!
So there’s a demon or something: whatever. At least they don’t have to get evicted and live on the street! That’s a real-life horror that’s happening to more and more people day after day, and it’s all because of ridiculously overvalued real estate, and stagnant wages. This is what’s really scary to me these days. And until we can fix this stuff, ghosts and goblins just seem like cuddly stuffed animals as far as I’m concerned.
