With age comes the realization
that you can take on any type of horror. Ghosts, blood, you can work it all
out. You can deconstruct it. These days, the effect of The Conjuring would not be nearly as powerful as it was a few years
ago. It would wear off soon and perhaps even make me smile.
But ever since I
watched Polanski’s Rosemary’s Baby…
Suffice it to say
that the final scene is still with me. To this day, I won’t take on horror
remotely revolving around religious sects or cults. This year’s fantastic documentary
Going Clear proved yet again what organized
religion can stand for, and I really
should have backed away from going to a late night screening of An Invitation. An American thriller so
unsettling and so disgusting (and probably brilliant) that the terrorist
attacks on Paris I read about in a taxi, on my way home, at 5 a.m., seemed merely
a continuation of what came before.
