The Top of the Stairs

The world needs more babysitters. Or maybe, the parents of the world need more discretion. In my repeated viewings of "Dark Knight" following the climactic midnight screening almost a week ago today, I've noticed a disturbing phenomenon of small children filling the theatre seats. While I do realize that the movie is 'just' PG-13, the material contained within it seems to me the stuff of every nightmare I've been visited by since age 3. A horror movie fan myself, being known for throwing the most lavish and terrifying Halloween parties this side of sanity, it is my own prognosis that as a whole, "Dark Knight" is simply more terrifying than any recent horror film in my memory. 

Much like a child who has recently discovered the 'truth' about Santa Clause, America seems to have become obsessed with the concept "seeing is believing". In the tragic remakes of classic slasher flicks that arrive in cineplexes today, we stare wide-eyed at the screen as every drop of the none-too sparse blood flies out of bodies in high definition. After walking out of Rob Zombie's 2007 version of "Halloween", my face was as white as one of Michael Meyer's corpses as a contemplated the staggeringly high body count; a friend later gave me an estimated number of one every two minutes. Looking forward to the upcoming reinterpretation of "Friday the 13th", though I've never been overly found of the original, I can only predict that Marcus Nispel's (who is he anyway?) version will be more intense, bloodier, more graphic, and ultimately, awful. 

Stephen King once wrote in "Danse Macabe" about the phenomenon "at the top of the stairs". I may have referenced it once before on this blog, but it revolves around the basic concept that while the walk by the main character up and over the creaky stairs with the beat of a pulsating heart in the background may turn hairs white in terror, but when they reach the ultimate landing at the top and the monster leaps out at them, what follows will inevitably never reach the expectations established only moments ago. What one may take from this idea, is that in horror novels and books,  atmosphere is the most powerful demon of all. While there are the very rare exceptions, one obvious example being "The Exorcist", (who can forget that backwards spider walk?!) the concept generally holds true. One of the most powerful experiences I've had in watching a horror movie was at a pre-screening of Neil Marshall's 2005 film, "The Descent". Being seemingly stuck in the darkened movie theatre watching a movie where the slow luring into blackness leads to madness by a group of female cavers, I experienced a profound sense of vertigo, usually reserved for repeated roller coaster rides and bumpy car trips. While the monsters themselves within "The Descent" were respectably terrifying, it was the moments they were not onscreen that caused the cold sweats I quickly broke into. While it's now showing its age amidst hordes of copycats and high budget imitators, "The Blair Witch Project" held the basis of its appeal on the "top of the stairs" concept. The final scene, though no 'witch' ever appears on camera, was enough to cause me more than a few nights of lost sleep. 

"Dark Knight" benefits greatly from its PG-13 rating in the terror department, for while the most gruesome and terrifying acts committed by The Joker are left to play out after the plot has moved on to another scene, our minds are left pondering the horrifying "what if", rather than sinking into the pathetic "gross out" factor of blood flying into our faces from all angles. We are left to wonder if the monster is still out there, and its havoc playing itself out, somewhere in the unseen darkness.