Have you ever wanted to walk out on a movie?
I can honestly say that in all my years going to the theatre, I have never just walked out, given up on a movie. There have been a couple that were close. (Cool World is one of the worst movies I ever sat through.) I saw a movie on a plane once that I wish I could have walked out of. (Joe vs. The Volcano, et tu Tom Hanks?) Even some really bad movies might have something about them that makes me want to stay through them to see how things get wrapped up. (Curiosity is a dangerous thing at times.)
With the advent of streaming however, I stop watching movies all the time. My Netflix queue has a variety of films that are expectantly waiting for me to click on and finish. One that I will not be finishing is a horror flick called Fear Street 1994. Fifteen minutes was all I could handle. I have seen films with violence, I can usually take them for what they are worth, but when the first fifteen minutes has 1.) no likeable characters; 2.) pointless, random violence; 3.) seeming disre- gard for anything resembling human compassion and emotion, well, I’m out. It is a horrible, horrible movie. Well, the first fifteen minutes is, at least. (That is all I can fairly review.)
I think it is generational. The “Fear Street” books were popular in the mid to late 1990’s and appar- ently, a lot of teenagers read it. I had never heard of it before. Let me tell you why I had such a visceral reaction to this.
The film starts in a mall. A young woman is closing up a store. Suddenly, there is a hooded figure attacking her. He (you find out immediately who the killer is) stabs her and then he is shot and killed by the police. OK. Not like I haven’t seen this played out in one form or another.
What got to me was a scene after that, the next day at school. Think about this for a second. A young man randomly stabs a classmate and is then shot and killed. But at their school it is business as usual. Really? The students even com- plain that they have to attend a memorial service
for the young woman. That is when I clicked off my TV. What world is this?
I have been in a high school after students have died. Two accidents, two suicides. Our students were not just distraught, they were shattered. It was not business as usual. Years afterwards, they would still tear up remembering their friends. If I would have come to school and the students had reacted like the teens in the movie, I think I would have quit education immediately. Fear Street gives a dark, and I believe, unfair view of teenagers. They are way more compassionate that what the movie depicted.
But what really disturbed me was the hopeless- ness and apathy that was depicted. That may be trendy, that may be cool, but it is totally soulless. It is not a world that I want to live in. That’s why the feast of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary is such a powerful feast. In the face of suffering, in the face of aimlessness, in the face of indifference and unconcern, the des- tiny of Mary speaks of hope, of life, of glad- ness and joy. What we claim for Mary is what we hope for ourselves, eternal life with God and our families in heaven.
Our belief in the Assumption of Mary reminds us that the ‘business as usual” of hate, of despair, of coldness and lethargy, do not have the final say in our lives. That’s a story that I want to watch to the end.
After all, I don’t live on Fear Street, I live on Joy Avenue.