Stupid things that bother me

Only in Austin.

So thanks to this (not great, but not bad) horror movie “Mirrors” starring Kiefer Sutherland that I watched last night, I’ve spent a chunk of my morning wondering about things that aren’t real and don’t matter…but still bug me.

You see, Kiefer plays this guy who gets a job as a security guard for this department store that burned down, and his first night there the mirrors all over the place start acting scary and come after him for no apparent reason. And by three nights there the freaky monsters in the mirror have killed his sister and are after his family. But the thing of it is, there’s ANOTHER security guard who’s been there for like 15 years and he’s FINE. And he never even says, “Hey, whatever you do, don’t look in the mirrors because they’re evil. And they’ll kill you and everyone you know within a week.” In fact, he seems blissfully ignorant.

And sure, the happy go lucky ‘no evil here’ security guard has the day shift, but what about in December when it’s dark until 8am and gets dark again at 4pm? Surely he’s been in that place in a limited light situation??? Near as I can tell, it’s not even that well-lit during the day. And besides, the mirrors seem to have no problem acting evil during the day (like when the little kid is talking to himself in one of them. It was day.) so some kind of explanation like they only initiate the first evil-doing in the dark seems overly complex.

But that’s another one of those scary movie plot devices that gets tiresome: The overly complex engagement. Like if you were an evil entity able to wreak havoc and destroy life, would you really only wait for someone to watch a bizarre student art film on video (I mean, who even watches video anymore? I’d rather watch something on an iPod than fire up a VHS machine. I mean, what if the tape isn’t at the beginning and the rewind function isn’t working on the machine? Remember how eventually everyone had to buy a separate little rewinder box?) before calling them and whispering “seven days” and unleashing a world of hurt and terror?

Wouldn’t it be a lot easier to prey on all the kids playing “Bloody Mary or “Light as a feather, stiff as a board” or telling ghost stories or pulling the wings off flies or just hang out in department store mirrors and pick on whoever looks gullible? Or how about hanging out at your local Cracker Barrell as a seemingly innocent-looking puzzle box that you trick people into solving…and then unleash upon them painful chains and whips and a new life in a sadistic hell, a la Hellraiser, and all for half-heartedly fooling with a Rubix cube?

Or how about anything involving zombies? People love zombies almost as much as they fear them. And they’re unstoppable. That’s what makes them such good plot devices as well as super useful for sequel after sequel after sequel. You can’t keep a good zombie down.

Speaking of which, you’ve got to have some love in your heart for Austin, the only thing that makes Texas bearable AND where some hilarious people managed to hack into some construction update signs and display the following warnings for several hours. If only every city had citizens so funny.

Tags: funny stories, funny storytelling, horror movie plot devices, horror movie plot holes, horror movies, Humor, humorous stories, Kiefer Sutherland, Life, Mirrors movie, The Ring, weird art film VHS The Ring, zombies

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