Scarred For Life

There is a moment in every young person's life where a story hits you in the chest. Maybe you end up scared, maybe you end up crying, maybe it's your first crush. And maybe it's some strange combination of all three?

The conversation around the indie horror game Horses got Patrick thinking about challenging art, and the way art pushes and pulls you in different ways depending on how old you are, what you're seeking out, and how expectations radically change over time time.

For Rob, of course, it was a chance to talk about Little Women.

Of course.

Patrick: Do you remember the first piece of art that fucked you up?

I have this very distinct memory of my mom bringing home a VHS copy of E.T. and the family gathering on the couch. Me, my younger brother, my mom, and one of her best friends E.T. came out in 1982 and I wasn’t even born until 1985, so I have no idea what age we were watching the movie at, but like—we were very young. My mom had seen the movie before and was excited to share it with us. She had also forgotten the hardcore jump scare that kicks the movie off in the cornfield and the whole sequence where E.T. almost dies. I mean, that shot of E.T. in the fucking ditch has lived rent free in my head for decades. My brother and I were bawling, while my mom reportedly looked over to her friend and said “I don’t remember all this!”

E.T. is the definition of a popcorn flick, albeit a very good one. But it was the first time a movie—or a piece of art—really drove a sharp emotional response from me. I didn’t process it that way at the time, but in hindsight, that was a big moment. (By contrast, the first time my nine-year-old cried during a movie was watching 2009’s Hotel For Dogs, in which she was hysterically crying towards the end. It seemed like the literal “hotel for dogs” at the center of the film was being destroyed, leaving the dogs without a home. The hotel, thankfully, lived on.)

You can draw a pretty straight line between many of my personal interests and that moment!

What I’ve always enjoyed about horror is feeling uncomfortable. It wants to push you. I feel physically and psychologically moved when I engage with an effective piece of horror, and probably more than any other genre, you can arrive at an emotional moment very quickly.

I started thinking about this because of our recent discussion about Horses, the indie horror game that spurred a bunch of discussion about art, censorship, and the roles of platform holders like Steam. You weren’t present for that conversation, but I assume you’re aware of the beats.

One of the pleas I made on the podcast was to seek out uncomfortable art. Go to storefronts where you might find something that is genuinely surprising. Understand that storefronts are carefully curated, and while it might feature many good things, curation is a judgment call. Find an .exe that gives you pause about whether there might be a virus hiding in the file structure.

I think Horses is…okay. I’m glad I played it, but I won’t think about it a week from now. It mostly reminded me that I need to spend more time taking my own advice and experiencing weird stuff.

My wife and I do have a process to get outside of our comfort zone with movies, at least. It’s going to sound kinda boring and normie, but I do value that we follow this process every year. 

We watch every single movie that’s up for Best Picture at the Oscars. No, this does not mean I am experiencing the most avante-garde art from indie filmmakers on a shoestring budget pushing at the definitional edges of filmmaking, but most years, I can barely keep up with the fun and goofy blockbusters rolling out. Plus, fun and goofy blockbusters pair well with a Saturday evening as you split a bottle (or two) of wine with a partner. Less so with sad movies!

I can’t remember how long we’ve been doing this watch-every-nominated-film schtick, but I managed to get my neighbors to get in on the action, too, and it’s led to some hysterically fun conversations about movies that click, movies that don’t, and just generally watching stuff that I would not otherwise click to rent on iTunes or whatever. (Sing Sing is one of the best movies I’ve seen in the past decade, and I’m not sure I would have watched it without this in place.)

Anyway, I’ve gone on long enough. What movie—or other form of art—fucked you up, Rob?

Rob: Okay, so my dad loved mob movies and so they were on in the background a lot growing up. Which means that the image of Robert De Niro sitting down in his car and then being blown into oblivion by a car bomb is engraved in my brain, though until recently I'd also seamlessly blended that scene with the opening of Backdraft, where the killer's first victim in the film opens their front door and gets blasted by the titular backdraft and their entire head is shown melted in the next scene.

All that was bad enough but then my dad had The Godfather playing and nothing rattled me about that movie. Not the horse's head, not what happens to Sonny, not Michael shooting the police captain. But then, right when things seem to be going well for Michael in Italy, what happens? That's right: car bombing.