That's What You Get When You Let Your Heart Win, Whoa, I Drown Out All My Sense With The Sound Of Its Beating

--"That's What You Get", Paramore

After a pretty peaceful afternoon of attending the North Orange County Boardgamers meeting, I met up with Ilessa for dinner and to take in a movie. I want to mention this because my state of mind going into the movie theater was relatively calm and relaxed. If there are three things that I thoroughly enjoy at this moment in my life, they would have to be getting a couple of hours of good gaming, grubbing down on something that's totally awful for me but tastes fucking diving, and hanging out with somebody who gives as good as she gets it. Going into the film I was ready to chalk this up to a fairly relaxing day. However, by the time we left the theater I was off-kilter and more than a little agitated thanks to a little film called The Ruins.

Usually, I try to stay away from horror films. Most of the time I find them rather gory, usually inane, and seemingly all revolving around some type of monster who stalks and eventually kills off most of the heroes. After watching Buffy and seeing how much they tweak the general plot line of horror and monster films, I've found that most horror films are uninspired and insipid in their execution. Usually, I'm bored out of my mind at even the best of horror films.

The Ruins is different, though. It's less about something trying to get the main characters as the main characters fighting against the fate they've chosen. Sure, there's a "monster," but it's a monster in the same sense that Nature is a monster in Jack London's "To Build A Fire." It's not something the chases the heroes done or stalks them into submission. It's more akin to a blizzard or a forest fire; it doesn't care who it's killing. It doesn't have emotions such as violence or vengeance or even anger. It kills because that's the natural order of things. You can no more blame the monster in this film as you can blame a shark for eating fresh meat in the water. That's its sole purpose. I found that fact way more frightening than the actual death scenes because it's so elementary that it makes me think there are places in the world where this might actually happen. It's scary because, unlike most horror films, any one of us could accidentally or purposefully walk into a scenario similar to the one which happens in the film.

I liked the movie. I liked not because it's one of a few modern-day horror films to scare me, but also because it's one of the few horror films where I just didn't want any part of what was going on. Sure, there's almost always a disbelief that anyone could be so stupid to end up in the sights of killer when it's obvious almost from the get-go of any scary film's premise that something is amiss. Most of the time, the film asks us as the audience to suspend our disbelief that individuals are actually this naive or lacking for common sense. Yet this film doesn't really do that. It posits a plausible scenario, kids going down to Mexico and wandering off the beaten path. Not only that, but it doesn't plunk them down in a remote location due to a series of missteps. It places them in a location where, once there is trouble, they try everything to escape. This is what I like about the movie. Their fate isn't due so much because they were ignorant and ignored the warning signs. Their fate is similar to a hiker who falls down the side of a trail and who's unable to climb back up rather than somebody who foolishly decides to jump off the cliff wily-nilly.


oh why do we like to hurt so much?

However, with that being said, I also found myself reaffirming a few beliefs I've held for a long time. I've had a distrust of visiting foreign countries for a long time now. There are a few countries I want to visit, but most of the world I've just never wanted to go to. That's due to consequences like what happens to the main characters in this film. I'm not talking about being slowly killed off one-by-one by some freak of nature "thing." I'm talking about not being aware of the dangers that all the locals know about. I'm talking about being unable to comprehend that getting into a shitload of trouble outside of one's country is a thousand times worse than getting into a shitload of trouble inside one's country. I'm talking about the general sense that when you walk into a foreign land, it's like starting a game where you're not clear about all the rules yet and haven't been given the time to understand exactly what the stakes are.

I guess I side with Miss Toblerone in this instance. Visiting a foreign country just has too many variables and places you too much at risk to make it worth it for me. I'm all for seeing sights and experiencing adventures one cannot gather at home, but that's a bit too far down on the risk/reward scale for me to make it worthwhile. I like knowing what I can and can't do in a given place. I like knowing what the limits are and what the penalties for failing to abide by these limits are. What I don't like is finding out I wasn't supposed to cross this bridge when I've already crossed it. What I don't like is stepping outside of the safe zone when I'm just not sure how unsafe it is beyond its borders.

I have a healthy sense of recklessnesses. I'm also quite impulsive given certain circumstances. But I don't play around when too much is unknown. I'd rather stay in the country and know where I stand than go somewhere afar and not know if and when I'm doing something wrong or, worse than that, doing something that could get me killed.

I don't see the point in putting yourself in a position where you can get hurt without knowing why. If I'm going to get hurt, I'd at least like to there's a possibility of it coming and a sense of where it will be coming from.

In this instance, I say resist the urge to go see what's over on the other side.

I'm not going to be sucked down into some ruined temple because it just happened to be the "temple that sucks people down" that all the locals avoid.

I'm not going down like that. Not me.

Yours Swimmingly,
mojo shivers