You feel kind of special running stop signs and red lights. I’ve never driven in a funeral cortege before but this one is somehow taking place on an obligingly rainy October afternoon. Although I was in that kind of emotional shock that you feel at the death of a close family member (it isn’t my first), I couldn’t help but consider all those behind the scenes who work in the death industry. From the mortician at the Gardinier-Warren Funeral Home—where my grandmother’s funeral was also held—to the undertaker getting soaked in the chilly rain, everyone was friendly and kind. I also reflected that watching horror movies is homework in a world where death is inevitable. As a child I already knew about death, and although I’m not afraid to die, I’m not eager to have that particular experience just yet.
Horror movies are all about learning to cope. Not so different from the book of Job, they’re reflections on why “the good life” doesn’t continue as it sometimes does for various stretches of a human life. And as we age, death more and more naturally comes to mind. I’ve written before about the therapeutic aspect of my odd avocation. One of the realities of growing up religious is that my mother—may she rest in peace—taught me early on that this would be my bodily fate. I found it disturbing seeing my grandmother in her casket. I remember distinctly Mom telling me, “this is just her shell,” that her soul had moved on. That didn’t prevent nightmares of that shell rising and walking again. Is it any wonder I grew up watching horror films?
Reflecting afterwards with my brothers on our physical ailments—we aren’t young any more—my thoughts wandered back from time to time to horror movies that had made this just a little easier for me. Life is full of opportunities to do our homework. As I grew up reading the Bible and watching horror, I didn’t think of it as studying, but it was. Many kids with whom I went to high school have died over the years. I tend to look at the alumni magazine necrologies even as medical science improves our chances of surviving some of nature’s more dreaded diseases. Life comes with no guarantees and horror films reinforce that it’s not a bad idea to think of some of these things ahead of time. Afterwards, at one of my mother’s favorite local overlooks, I reflected on how I have a lot yet to process. Homework never ends.
