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izzy-b-hands · 3 years

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Cold As The Grave

Written for my DL Server bingo card prompt: Cool Cat.

I cannot recall the interview this was in for the life of me, but I do recall at least one mentioning John not finding horror movies scary at all.

Going off of that, we have here scary movie night, aka scary movie night for Roger, Freddie, and Brian, and comedy movie night for John (while the other three look on both in horror at the movies and at John laughing his ass off at the creepiest and most gory scenes, utterly cool and unbothered by all of it.) Set in a modern AU because then I can reference as many of the movies I’ve seen myself as possible lol.

My love to all who read/like/reblog!

“This is great,” John chuckled, and tossed more popcorn into his mouth. “You know, I learned how they make the fake blood look that thick. I should show you guys sometime.”

He continued eating and watching, apparently not feeling the three pairs of eyes no longer glued to the screen, but staring in horror at him instead.

Roger and Brian jabbed him at once, and Freddie jumped. “Ah. Right. You could show us that, sometime. Or not, I mean, we’re often busy-”

“Very busy,” Roger added.

“Horribly,” Brian nodded.

“Look!” John cheered. “Look at what the rats are doing! The effects are fantastic in this!”

“This is disgusting,” Roger hissed, gesturing to the scene from Sinister 2 playing out on the TV. “How is he still eating?!”

“I could really go for pizza,” John continued. “Meat lovers and a vegetarian for Bri?”

Brian swallowed hard as he watched the scene continue. “Sure. Yeah. Because I can eat while we watch things like this.”

“Of course, yeah,” Freddie agreed, letting out a heavy held breath as John got up to go order the pizza. “How long has he been like this? How did we not notice?”

“Should we call his mum,” Roger proposed. “To find out if she knows about this, and if so, how has she dealt with it?”

“We don’t have enough time for that,” Brian replied. “I can’t eat while we watch this. My stomach isn’t the weakest, but this is...god, and he wants to start the Saw movies after this. Guys, I can’t.”

“No, he actually has the Human Caterpillar movies on the list next, the Saw films are after that,” Freddie said with a wince. “Maybe he won’t notice if we aren’t eating?”

“It’s on the way!” John announced happily as he bounced back in and onto the couch. “You lot okay? Awfully pale, all of you. Don’t tell me you’re scared!”

“It is a horror movie,” Roger said defensively. “Most people do get scared of those. Most people. Lots of people, even. Sort of the idea behind them.”

“You’re all silly,” John laughed. “This isn’t that bad.”

“I’m sorry, what movies do you consider ‘bad’ then?” Brian asked. “I’m curious and terrified to know.”

“Wouldn’t you like to know,” John teased, and started back in on the popcorn.

Freddie laughed nervously. “Actually, darling, we would! Care to share with us, or...”

But John was back into the movie, laughing at the next horrific act on the screen. “You ever think about what you’d do, if you were in that situation? I like to think I’d handle it better.”

“Do I ever think,” Brian said slowly. “About what I would do if a version of the Boogeyman was real. And had a curse. And was going to try and convince any children I might have to kill me, and film the results. No. No I have not.”

“Okay,” John said, and gestured to the DVD case holding the first Human Caterpillar movie. “What about that? If we got kidnapped, all of us, on tour-”

Roger covered his eyes, and groaned.

Freddie’s eyes were wide. “Have...have you thought about that?”

“It’s all in good fun,” John giggled, then jumped at the sound of the doorbell. “Oh! Scared me, they got here fast!”

Freddie leaned forward, head in his hands as John got up to go retrieve the pizza. “I’m. This was supposed to be a fun movie night. I’m learning too much about him. About all of us. And I love you all, you’re brothers to me, but there’s a limit in what I can learn in one night, and I think I just found it.”

“I need a hug,” Roger said miserably, hanging onto Freddie’s arm as he gave him an awkward half-hug. “Thank you.”

“Maybe he’ll just watch them now,” Brian said. “He’ll be busy eating, then full, then comfy and warm. Might even fall asleep.”

“And if he keeps laughing at this shit like some demon from foulest hell?!” Roger hissed.

“Then we accept he’s lightly possessed and move on with our lives, Roger!” Brian said sharply. “I don’t know what else we do if he keeps that up; I’m busy trying to figure out how he finds any of it funny!”

“There’s got to be one of these that scares him,” Freddie said, shuffling through the DVD cases and pondering the list of streamed movies they’d made up. “We’ll spend all night watching if we must. We’re going to find one that scares him, one that doesn’t make him act like-”

“Pizza for the scaredy cats!” John smiled as he set the pizza boxes down on the coffee table. “If you lot can manage to eat any.”

“We can,” Roger scoffed, but he actively looked away from the TV as he picked up a slice. “See? Perfectly fine, and not feeling sick at all.”

“Okay,” John giggled. “If you say so.”

“Let me know when I can look back,” Roger whispered to Freddie as he ate as quickly as possible.

“You mean when the movie is over?” Freddie whispered back.

“Essentially, yeah,” Roger replied.

---

Four hours later, they had yet to succeed in their task.

He’d giggled his way through the Human Caterpillar movies.

Cackled through the Saw pictures, and started in on how he’d make his own horrible pain maze, if he was forced to create one.

Hereditary and Midsommar? He was enraptured.

“Okay,” Freddie sighed. “This one says it’s also a comedy. Can we try that?”

John slipped the disc for The Cabin in the Woods into the player. “Don’t think I ever actually got around to watching this one. Why not?”

It was silly. Schlocky, at bits even. But it was a dream for the three of them; a break from overwhelming scares and gore in exchange for a more acceptable level of those things, in addition to a chance to laugh.

John, however, was tense.

“You alright?” Freddie asked about midway through the movie.

John nodded, but didn’t speak. He’d stopped nibbling at the leftover pizza, his remaining popcorn left in the bowl and set on the floor.

“The effects are good in this,” Roger tried a bit later. “Right? I mean, it’s gory, but even we can handle it. Pretty silly of us, huh, Deaky?”

John didn’t look away from the screen.

“Um. So, who do you think we’d all be, if it was us, in that?” Brian asked with a gentle smile. “And who would be the fifth person to join us?”

“Well, none of us can be the virgin,” Freddie giggled. “Right, Deaky?”

“Rather not think about it,” John replied tersely.

They looked at each other and frowned.

“Okay,” Freddie said. “You’re sure you’re alright?”

��I’m fine,” John said. “Just don’t like thinking about something like this happening to us, I guess.”

“But you were okay with the plot of the Human Caterpillar happening to us?!” Roger squawked.

“Not okay with it, just thought it was an interesting thing to consider,” John said. “We’d escape and be fine, obviously.”

“And we wouldn’t escape this, you don’t think?” Freddie asked gently.

“Look at it!” John scoffed as the final scene rolled. “They didn’t! And they potentially could have had at least one of them escape, maybe! I couldn’t...”

He hesitated. “I couldn’t hurt any of you to save my own hide.”

“We wouldn’t be able to hurt you either,” Brian said. “You know that!”

“Yeah!” Roger added. “We’d all go down together instead, in a blaze of fire!”

“Really?” John asked softly.

“Or in a blaze of us terrified, shitting ourselves,” Roger shrugged. “One of those two for sure though.”

“No other spots on the spectrum we could occupy, just violence or absolute terror?” Freddie asked.

“Maybe, but I’m tired, this is the best analysis I can do for now,” Roger yawned.

“We should sleep,” Brian agreed. “I’m exhausted, somehow. Thought I’d be too scared to sleep, all things considered.”

Freddie nodded and tilted his head towards John. “You coming in with us?”

“I...I’m good. Might stay up yet. Just because,” John shifted uncomfortably on the couch.

“Are...you’re scared,” Roger said gently. “Aww, Deaky.”

“Shut up!”

“I knew there had to be one that would get you,” Freddie said. “Didn’t expect it to be this one, if I’m honest. We’ll stay out here with you, how about that?”

“You don’t need to do that,” John muttered. “I’m not a child.”

“Who said you were?” Brian asked. “I’m staying out here because frankly, that stupid Boogeyman thing pops up in my vision every time I close my eyes, and I hate that.”

Roger nodded. “I’m now horrified of Germany, thanks to that Caterpillar movie. Going to have nightmares of...well. You know. Better to stay out here, with you lot.”

“And that fucking demon thing from Insidious?” Freddie added. “I hate it. And now I do have the odd feeling it’s somehow going to watch me while I sleep. So it would be nice to not be alone tonight, if possible.”

“I don’t believe you,” John said, but he smiled as he spoke. “Fine. We’ll push the couch back and set up on the floor?”

“Exactly,” Freddie said. “That way when we do have nightmares, we can promptly kick each other awake during them.”

John seemed happier as he helped clean the living room up, and walked off to retrieve extra blankets and pillows.

Freddie waited a beat before whispering. “Were you lot really going to go into your own rooms? There was no way I could have; I don’t know how I’ll sleep as it is!”

“I was trying to look tough in front of him,” Brian muttered. “That was stupid. I didn’t need to do that. I really do hate that fucking Bagul or whatever the fuck it is-”

“Jump scare at the end of that one was the best, wasn’t it?” Roger grinned.

“How dare you make me remember that,” Brian sighed. “But better that then...well. Your nightmares are going to be a lot worse than mine, I think.”

“Let’s not make it a competition,” Freddie murmured. “It’s nearly five in the morning, and...fuck.”

“You just remembered we rented the studio space out starting at eight, didn’t you?” John said as he walked back in and dropped the blankets onto the floor. “I thought it was weird you guys agreed to this on the night before a day in the studio! But you just all forgot, didn’t you?”

Three shameful nods were all they could manage in response as they finished settling in, all of the lights off, snuggled together.

John, for his part, seemed far less scared than he had been before, now that they were all piled in the same makeshift bed. He snored gently; it might be a decent three or so hours of sleep for him.

If the rest of them had their eyes glued to checking the time on their phones as said three hours passed, jumping at each noise in the shared flat...

John didn’t need to know about that. No one, frankly, needed to know about that. Not him, nor the studio techs that would likely be raising brows at the bags under their eyes.

That was their secret, and a reminder to better plan the next horror movie night, well in advance of any studio time.

#text post #LeeH writes #queen band fic

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rgr-pop · 6 years

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I’m getting a TON of asks about why Hereditary was bad and I wrote a long ambling post but I think I should just start with some bullets instead. Buried in here are some very frank and gory descriptions of violence against women, disabled people, etc. so watch out.

This, like so much new Prestige Horror, was lauded as “new” and compared to Get Out, which is bananas but specifically leads me to suspect that the function of Prestige Horror is to soften the institutional impact left by the only actual innovative genre film of the past lbr decade having been a Black Film. Read this contention alongside the Academy’s crisis over “genre”!

The other thing about Prestige Horror is a critique I don’t have a more sophisticated way of advancing: it’s about aesthetics! Or, rather: it believes that horror films are about aesthetics but it advances an approach to genre that untangles the visual from other conventions and also um. Is fucking stupid. It Follows is a great example of a film in this wave whose visuals have been mistaken for insight by a critical base that a) isn’t that familiar with horror films and b) LOVES extremely regressive sexual politics and believes horror must contain them in order to be good. Hereditary made me feel a sentimental longing for It Follows. In my opinion Hereditary’s cinematography was bomb, but in this case of this film it wasn’t just that critics received its beauty as insight and innovation, but that the film itself, um. I’m not exaggerating: the film just laid in shots of Houses as shorthand for the biological determinism/Feminine Madness it purported to be about, and not only was that handled shoddily, it’s not a compelling arc in horror anymore! Please stop! (Quick aside: I wasn’t satisfied with the visual language of the houses, either! Sorry!) Even disregarding the longer lineage of storytelling about women’s madness they were trying to work themselves into (Notice Me Roman Polanski), just looking at the recent precedent that allowed this film to even be made or received as it was, the allegorizing here was less tight than The Babadook’s and less argumentative than the first season of Stranger Things! There was one cute beat with the husband that called back to Rosemary’s Baby but like men have to do more than that to impress me, lol.

Here is where I bring up my extremely fringe beliefs about Paranormal Activity again, and you WILL listen to me!! Over however many films, Paranormal Activity more or less established this: a genealogy of women witches scheming to produce a male child heir to embody a “male” demon on earth. In Paranormal Activity, the mechanism through which these witches acted was through the manipulation of the institution of heterosexuality--marriage between men and women and, then, their new-build subdivision houses. Fans such as moi believe due to various clues that the witches literally operated through the practice of real estate business, and perhaps PERHAPS this is the only great critique in horror that hasn’t been fulfilled. Fans such as moi have been waiting to see that film. About a third of the way into Hereditary I realized that it was Paranormal Activity fanfic without the political economy. In brief: a woman with a family legacy of mental illness--you have NEVER heard this next part before--that turns out to have been witchery and demons! She is entrapped by a witch who witched with her mother to summon a demon into her household and inhabit her boy son, who will then become a king of hell on earth. In order for this to happen, the witches manipulate a situation where the woman’s autistic-coded gender-variant child [her younger daughter] is beheaded. We see the child’s head covered in flies on the road. The witches use the mother’s grief to manipulate her, but otherwise this disabled child is not considered again, not really. This move is wildly applauded. This film is placed next to Hush and A Quiet Place as great new entries in a new era of Disability Representation in Horror. This is one of the only moments in a horror film that has ever truly offended me, and I believe it to be the absolute most repugnant approach to disability in horror this century. (And, remember, all horror is an approach to disability!)

So not only that but I found it insulting to Paranormal Activity and my intelligence as an intense Paranormal Activity truther.

At a certain point we have to be able to say: movies made today by men can be sexist. Even horror movies. Hereditary can be sexist even if we can find, say, Evil Dead to be generative to feminist thinking. This is a sexist movie, and men need to read a couple of books, sometimes, like eventually, men need to read books.

I admit to feeling mixed about the end, from like a Carol Clover Male Identification lens. I don’t have any good answers about it. But it remains true that the boy subject of the film is reigned a king. (And it remains true that the final images of whatever coven is operating in the film is shown to be a group of both men and women, very hung up on the concept of maleness as this shit ALWAYS seems to go, and I hate both of those things, and I especially hate when they operate in tandem with the unique sexualization of Female Witches!)

#film #horror

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horrible-monstrosity · 6 years

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17 We open with friendly neighborhood dumbass Akko studying studiously, sitting on a bench in a sunny grassy field which she ignores in favor of a massive stack of books like the bookworm Lottie only sort of is, while redhead side witch bitches about dropping out of school because she's just too cool. An... interesting entrance into the episode, to be sure.

Redhead turns herself into a dashing boys' school student. ..... Did the spell make her grow bollocks

"even though no one's asking you?" is a pretty weird way to ask someone about their dream. I don't think anyone asked redhead to become a broomdancer, or robots girl to become robots, or... anyone to do anything they just wanted to do. and again, she has already accomplished what she says she wants to do- the yeti, in the next episode robert girl, the fairy strike... this show does not know what it has done or what it's doing.

... Wait, are they really here to just fucking steal the grail from the school? why? I've already forgotten why they wanted it, and why petty theft by a couple of randos is so easily accepted as a method of getting it back. Are there no witch authorities who might have wanted in on this? Later redhead says it "belongs" to the guys' school as a way to deflect explaining how it works... shrugg

Have I mentioned yet that I like the supporting trio more than the main three? I could probably write a whole fucking essay on that. All three of them are straight-up archetypes... but that alone is enough to make them at least basically functional as characters. Because that's *why* archetypes end up as archetypes- it's a grouping of character tropes and traits that hits a chord with people. And that's why "cunning normal" was such a fucking retarded concept, Kiznaiverrrrrrr-

It's kinda weird she stays disguised even after getting caught... I guess this is actually consistent; it's been shown before you need to use another spell to transform back, meaning unlike most settings ontological inertia actually applies. but then later on the transformation seems to start slowly undoing itself for no reason anyway. How does this work? magic router?? why'd akko even take that?... whatever

we finally get some violence against witches (threatened but never put though because of course not), which doesn't explain anything but at least characterizes the guys as your entirely typical medieval-styled witch not-likers. The fact that this is what passes for an improvement in this fuckshow of a shitshow is just fucking sad. there are some actually tense and brutal scenes in there, some nice visual shots, like akko getting thrown on the table tied up and the distant side-shot of the guy getting hit by the armor... that aren't killed by wackyness! Amazding! ... Though it still doesn't quite work, probably because the show is still clearly too light-hearted to, say, actually use the torture devices. But them being pulled out isn't a wacky gag either aside from a bit of the reaction. what tone is this?

"y u no use ur magic on me??" "because there's no reception here dumbass the fuck do you think this works like"

Yet another interesting unaddressed plot point- magic was what got them into this mess and turned blong guy into an armored monster, and while a witch was the one who stopped it little to no magic was used in doing so, she basically just needed to smack him hard enough. It seems like the takeaway from this is that witches are perfectly fine people, but magic still needs to fucking die. hmm

by the way what happened to the wordfinding plot this episode

So clearly this was Croi boi testing her angery magicks, but I have to wonder... *why* is anger magic the strongest sort? I mean, it can basically only be arbitrary, but how convenient that her evil energy-having plan can't just go off by spreading feelings of sunshine and happiness.

18 "trained to catch every gost in 12 days, but the goal is one gost in one year"... This is literally, exactly, what Lottie says. What? Literally one minute in and like 20 seconds of dialogue and already this shit makes not a single lick of fucking sense.

akko trips and fucks things up again okay we fucking get i- why was that enpugh to breakm the fucking robort? akko's own body must be the most destructive object know to mankind.

We return to the generic wackey-qwackey humorisms the show had mostly shed in the last couple episodes, and it feels more forced than ever before. After all these thng I can't actually believe Akko's still this shit... and apparently the show itself doesn't either, since as soon as Akko finds something she can actually do it entirely stops. Once she starts working as a convincer/go-between/gopher, not a single thing gets broken. In other words, Trigger just abandoned her character development to churn out and force out more mediocre obligate humor. But at least it was only for, like, half of the episode.

on the other hand once she gets her shit back together the cards get brought back. That was always a kind of interesting little thing, that Akko knew some things even other witches didn't because of the fandom-ing that brought her to the school where she was otherwise so far behind everyone else. I mean, that just raises the question of why the other witches apparently never saw these cards and I feel like I asked exactly this many an episode ago so let's just move the fuck on again

isn't the ship from the OVA? it looks like the shiny rod... and like the same old vaguely eva-lagann looking shit. I forget what it was from Gainax that looked like that, but definitely it was something.

"I already know I won't be as good as Constance"... Man, when Akko's good, she's fucking good. She really isn't trampling over someone else with the conviction that she's always right about everything, she's just so excited she wants to draw a fucking robort. And then Candace loves it and is inspired to make it actually work. it's fucking cute man

gosts viral on social media Normies can't see gosts, but presumably Akko can. How is this actually determined? Rather, the deeper problem is that the line between witches and normies was never defined. There's some implication that it's hereditary, since everyone aside from Akko comes from a "witching family", but the very existence of Akko belies that. So if anyone can train to become a witch, how much training do you do before you become witchy enough to see gost? Actually, should people with latent potential be able to see gost? If Akko is bad at becoming a witch, logically there should be some people who would be better at it relative to her. Shouldn't there be some people in the crowd who can see gost as is? Also, do any males exist with any amount of witch potential, who could see ghosts on their own? If they had never called attention to it by doing the "gost can't see normie" thing, there'd be nothing to really question- you could assume witching is a skill like any other that people could aquire, that's often handed down through families like any other job or career, and that some people are just kind of terrible at. Buuuuut they had to get in this lame "muh on muh cell phone at tuh evuuuunnnt" joke and didn't think it through. Good work, Trigger, keep it up

how is many crow? how many gost We're shown each cube succing up at least one gost each, then multiple cubes forming one crow, but then there's a whole fucking lotta fucking crows. How many gosts were there? How many were left after the large amount that were already taken out? There's just an unmeasured infinite supply of gost somewhere offscreen to conveniently move in as needed. Trigger didn't think this through. And then a super-giant mega-crow shows up which must have used up even more gost. Great

and then the robort- OKAY TRIGGER WE GET IT YOU WUZ GAINAX ONCE CALM THE FUCK DOWN this is just so boring. YEAH, A FUCKING ROBOT, WE GET IT TRIGGER, YOU FUCKS HAVE FUCKING ISSUES. GAINAX-SENPAI WILL NEVER FUCKING NOTICE YOU, GET OVER IT. ... reactions from the peanut gallery are on point tho. akko even credits constantinople for her part in making this possible. she's a good kid. so good. too pure for this fucking show - the robort runs out of energy- WHY DID YOU NOT BRING A ROUTER YOU FUCKNAUTS THERE WAS ONE IN THE IMMEDIATELY PRECEEDING EPISODE WHY - it's a drill. it's a fucking drill. ........ i want to cry acid.

team cubes it blastign off againnnnnnfuck this gay earth

aww man akko doesn't even want to be thanked but compton gives her a training broom anyway. it's beautiful.

19 an old tradition and a new power... croix-was-write is written into the very fabric of reality in this show. good and then mom-diana fucking dies. LOL BYE BITCH.

why would you have the head-appointing ceremony randomly every few years rather than, like, when you need to appoint a new family head? it would even affect the exact same urgency, just have events come to a head so she needs to be pulled out of school and become family head now. why are they electing a baby teen as family head anyway? what age are these kids, anyway? akko looks like ten sometimes.

the second diana says "muh respekt for convention!!" you know she's gonna be treated as full of shit. it's over something we've never heard of and had no reason to assume, anyway. i don't even know "you know about the words?" you've blabbed them to everyone including the rival school that wants to execute you all, so why are you surprised?

...... LOL WHUT THE AUNT LITERALLY HAS GLOWING RED DEMON EYES WHAT THE FUCC?

.... Andrew is one of the best fucking characters in this shitshow of a show. The amount of fucks he's come to not give... Just invite the witch girl your father knows and hates to ride in your car squished up between him and yourself. And dad-man just can't fucking do anything about it. Holy shit lol and lol these british people sure fucking love soccer. boy i sure bet this isn't hammed-in foreshadowing for some fucking bullshit that's going to happen in the last episodes!!!! i'd fucking bet my lyfe on it !!!!!!

what fuck is diantha wearing We get another one of those nice moments that makes me hate the rest of the show. Akko, being energetic and people-oriented as always but somewhat more constrained due to the awkward and unfamiliar situation, tries to go for the teddy bear as an attempt to start some conversation with Diana... Diana yells at her not to touch it, and she actually does not touch it. Now go back and watch the robot episode again. HMMMMMMmmmmm Except it wasn't about the bear, it was about the box of Chariot cards, because of course Diantha actually likes Chariot, bet no one ever saw that twist comingHEY WAIT A MINUTE, didn't one of the earlier episodes hinge on Akko knowing something Diantha didn't because of the cards?? It can't be because Akko was the only one to autistically memorize them all, because Diantha is smurt character and should have remembered it at least somewhat just from reading it normally. kindness from diana, when the rest of the family and household is by akko's own statement even worse.

old lady yells at akko while unfitting music plays

#triggered by trigger

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