The horror-comedy, Scream, starts with Casey, a high school student, getting a phone call. The call starts harmless but then she and her boyfriend get murdered by the caller. Throughout the movie, the Sydney’s friends get targeted by the killer. While Sydney and her boyfriend are at a party, the killer strikes again, and Sydney finds out that the killer is her boyfriend and his best friend. This leads to Sydney killing them.

This week I watched Scream. It is about Sidney and her friends who are being hunted by a serial killer in a ghost mask. As the plot progresses more Sidney’s friends and classmates are killed by ghost face. Near the end of the movie Sidney is at a party and the killer strikes again. After countless escapes Sidney comes face to face with the killer, who turns out to be her boyfriend, Billy. But also his friend, Stu, as they were killing everyone together. In the end Sidney kills them and is the final girl. Scream was likely the first version of a horror comedy. It also directly stated the rules of all scary movies.

In Wes Craven’s A Nightmare on Elm Street the teens of Elm street are all having very bizarre and realistic nightmares. All of their nightmares involve a strange man with a glove with knives and a dirty sweater. As the story progresses the teens of Elm street die on after the other, but it is because of their dreams. What happens in their dreams to them is real. Which brings it to the protagonist, Nancy, to stop him. After the death of her boyfriend Glenn Nancy induces sleep to catch the killer Freddie Krueger. She does but not without him further ruining her life, Freddie kills Nancy’s mother. The reason why Freddie Krueger went after these kids was because the parents had taken it upon themselves to end Freddie Krueger after he kills some of the kids of Elm street. The movie is a classic 80’s horror flick.

In A Nightmare on Elm’s Street, Tina has a dream in which a man with knives for fingers is chasing her, and when she wakes up, Tina’s night gown is torn where the man attacked her. The next night, she goes over to Nancy’s house because she does not want to sleep alone, but while she is sleeping she gets killed in her dream and dies in real life too. And one by one all of Nancy’s friends die in their dreams. Meanwhile, Nancy also has dreams about the man with knife-gloves, Freddie Krueger, but never dies. Throughout the movie, Nancy becomes more obsessed with stopping Krueger, and she ends up catching him. However, nothing changes in that her friends and mother are still dead.

This week I watched Alfred Hitchcock’s Psycho.  Psycho is about Marion, a woman who stole money from her job to run away. She later needed to stop, so she got a room at a motel. There she met the motel owner Norman Bates. But Norman is not all that he seems, he is also a taxidermist. After the two had dinner, they go their separate ways and Marion takes a shower. There she is murdered by Norman. After a private investigator is hired by Marion’s sister due to her disappearance. Marion’s body is later discovered in the trunk of the car in the swamp next to Norman’s motel and Norman is arrested. The audience later learns that Norman has split personality disorder. His other personality being his crazy jealous mother. Psycho has a deeper message that people are not all that they appear, there can be so much more within them.

This week I watched Psycho. A young woman, Marion, steals $40,000 from her boss and runs away. As she’s driving, she decides to stop at a motel because of a heavy rain shower. When Marion arrives, she meets Norman, the motel owner. They have dinner together, and later Marion gets murdered in the shower. After a few days, her sister gets worried and hires a private investigator, but when he traces her back to the motel, he also gets murdered. Norman ends up having two personalities, his mother and himself. This movie shows its audience that people are not always who they seem to be.

For our first movie we decided to watch Stephen King’s, The Shining. It is about Jack Torrance and his family’s experience at the Overlook Hotel, while Jack is getting back into writing. Though the trip is off to a rough start when Danny, Jack’s son, begins experiencing visions. These visions continue to get worse and worse and it seems Danny knows the twisted past of the Overlook. As Jack is writing he begins to slowly go insane with the isolation of the Colorado mountains. Jack begins visiting the hotel bar within the gold room. There he meets Lloyd, the bartender. Lloyd is who Jack confides with and goes to from the stress of the new writing project. Eventually out of the stress Jack tries to kill his son and wife just like the past murder that occurred decades ago. The Shining  shows the nature of human beings and how they are creatures of habit yet crave change.

This week we watched The Shining. It is about the Torrance family who watches over a hotel one winter isolated from most people. Throughout the movie, the little boy, Danny, starts seeing other people in the hotel with them because of his psychic abilities. He also sees hallways filled with blood, dead bodies, and the word “murder” written on a door backwards. As Danny has his visions, his father, Jack, isolates himself more and more. He often says that he is busy writing his novel. As he becomes more isolated, he gets more aggressive toward his wife and child. Jack also begins seeing a man in the hotel ,named Lloyd. As Jack and Lloyd spend more time together, Lloyd convinces Jack to “deal with” his wife and child. Jack eventually agrees and tries to kill Danny and his wife, Wendy. The Shining is a great example of how isolation can drive one insane. Not interacting with anyone, accept Danny and Wendy, caused him to create an imaginary “friend” to talk to, and eventually drives him to become psychotic. 

Thanks for joining me!

Good company in a journey makes the way seem shorter. — Izaak Walton