THE Editorial

According to Merriam-Webster, a simple definition of the word "the" is as follows — a definite article "used to indicate a person or thing that has already been mentioned or seen or is clearly understood from the situation." With the tail end of that definition in focus here, let's take a gander at a handful of recent horror films, shall we? "The Witch", "The Boy", "The Ruins", "The Pyramid", "The Babadook", "The Canal", "The Conjuring", "The Hallow", "The Darkness", "The Abandoned", "The Gallows", "The Forest", "The Veil", "The Complex", "The...ok, you get the gist. I could easily continue on like this for most of the day, or even a week, but fortunately I will spare you and myself the redundancy.

            First I'd like to confess that I do not consider myself an avid, hardcore horror fan. I'm 41 years of age now and as I enter my dark basement, the terrifying premise of hideous flesh eating monsters awaiting my arrival has been replaced by finding out my water heater is malfunctioning. Although, a valid argument can be made against that claim. Each night I find myself browsing the endless instant entertainment options available through television, without question I almost always find that I irresistibly gravitate towards selecting something filed under the "Horror" tab. The reason is simple enough. I'm daring these films. I WANT to be frightened. I crave the feeling of walking fast in a zig zag pattern when taking out the garbage at midnight so nothing can "get me". Quite frankly begging for it to happen. But alas, time and experience has made it easy to be stubbornly cynical and all to eager to roll eyes at plot holes and "tsk" bad acting. So while perusing through these movie titles, I keep asking myself what the problem is. Why do I press "Play" even with the preconceived notion of what's to follow? There's got to be a subconscious reason why it's not working. Then it hit me. "THE". THE, THE, THE. Whenever I saw that word in a list of titles, I knew it was a horror film. Without even reading the 2 sentence summary attached, I knew. And why is that? Why is it that this many writers, directors & producers feel as though they need this word to lead off? Is it merely a genre tradition? Is it lazy marketing so that you'll quickly identify it? I'm not so sure about that. Are they all are under the impression that they're distinguishing their story by making it so that the noun/verb following "The" is "clearly understood from the situation"? The holy crap. That's it! My mind is directly registering these films under the same presentiment of dread because they all think they're intimidating me by exploiting an English article as a specifying effect.
     
Imagining the outcome of some classic films, had they followed this formula, resulted in major douche chills. "The Alien", "The Scream", "The Rosemary's Baby", "The Dracula", "The American Werewolf In London", "The "Halloween". Yikes. Yet, when the opposite is done to classics by removing it, there's practically no damage done. For example, does "Exorcist", "Grudge" or even "Shining" lose anything of significance in title? Now obviously the adage "don't judge a blah blah by its blah blah" comes into the equation here, but that's always been easier said than done. Besides, that was probably cited from a terrible ancient artist anyway. Aren't we all expecting a certain packaging to live up to what meets our standard of taste when we are interested in something? Realizing this topic is a slight exaggeration, I truthfully believe there is something legitimate to it. Just as some folks possess a radar for when they're being condescended by advertisers or barked at by a dog they clearly know has no bite, I feel these films are a marriage of the two. Will there be a "boy" that comes along that ends up being more notorious than "The Boy"? Will he then be "Nah, THIS Is The Boy, That Other One Doesn't Have Shit On This One"? I don't know man. Maybe. Let's just be glad Spielberg made "Jaws" when and how he did. Otherwise we might be zipping past "The Shark" in the Netflix menu.

       Nothing is more critical to enjoying an art form than being able to fully indulge yourself into your own interpretation of what someone else is painting with their imagination for you. Whether it's a story on paper or on the boob tube, all I'm looking for is talent, creativity and if possible...a little modesty doesn't hurt. And modesty, in some cases, can be had at the low low cost of simply removing the word "the". "The" implies that they'll never be another like it, and guess what, they'll always be another Witch, another Conjuring or another Forest. And I'm not talking about sequels. Alright, enough of this psychotic rant, gotta get back to The Job.
End.

-Metrofudge