The Webcorcist

Let's talk about horror movies for a moment. Now, I am not a particular fan of horror movies as a genre, partly because I don't particularly care for the subjects presented, but mostly because I don't like being made fun of just because I happen to have a very high-pitched scream ("Like a two year-old girls, but more piercing," in the words of one cruel but accurate colleague.)  However, over the course of my life I have picked up enough to know some of the common tropes, and -hear me out here- I think I am living through a horror movie. Now, I know what you are thinking: "Ha. Yeah right. A few spiders does not a horror movie make." Well, I can see how you might think that, but just sit right back and prepare to be proved wrong by the Wrong-Prover.

Here are a few of the reasons I am convinced that I am living in a horror movie:

1) I keep finding spiders around my house in every conceivable location.

2) Did you even read what I just wrote? Seriously, that should be a good enough reason for anybody. However, if that's not enough, here are a few more reasons.

3) There are always premonitions and foreshadowings and whatnot that something is going to go badly, right before I, for example, am forced to fight a spider naked in the tub wielding only a shampoo bottle and the tattered shreds of my sanity.

4) I run into a spider (i.e, Monster) and am forced to fight desperately to retain my life and/or sanity. (See reason 3.)

5) There is a lot of screaming and running involved. (See reason 3 again.)

6) You realize there are literal movies that have been made about this scenario, right? Like, more than one. MANY movies have been devoted to the idea that spiders are horrifying and will destroy the world if given the chance.

7) I have reason to believe that this house was built on an ancient indian spider burial ground. (Indian Spider Burial Grounds are a real thing, right?)

There's another aspect of horror movies that I would like to address, though, since we're on the subject. As I have brought up in the past, the motivations of horror movie protagonists are often suspect, at best. When you are spending the night in a haunted mansion, or whatever generally noxious location you are at, how come they never leave immediately? I mean, places with reputations that bad must have them for some reason, right?

I have a theory about that, based on my own experiences. Maybe you move into a new house, and sure, it's a little creepy, what with hearing footsteps in unoccupied rooms, and an occasional spectral face manifesting by your bed and watching you sleep, but overall it's a nice house. Plus, you don't even have to deal with pesky neighbors, because everyone on the neighborhood ignores you (or just crosses themselves in your direction.) Besides, you just spent all that time and effort to move, screw doing that twice in the same year, amirite?

So things go on like that until one day, you realize that the ghostly chill in the air has driven your heating costs up to entirely unreasonable levels, plus that old priest and young priest won't quit coming to your house and begging you, for the sake of your immortal soul, to leave, and on top of that you have had to mop up the blood from the walls like 5 times today. (And don't even get me started on those evil twins that keep wanting you go play with them!) It's unsustainable!

Basically, my life is like that horror movie. I've been going along, dealing with spider after spider, until one day I realize that basically my life consists of mostly killing spiders, with brief breaks in between for eating, sleeping and school.

I'll give you an example. Today I noticed that my nails were getting a little long, and could use a trim. Totally mundane, right? Wrong. Oh so very wrong. I picked up the trash can to clip my nails into, because I am not a complete barbarian, and noticed there was a little spider web at the base of it. "Crazy how these spiders are getting everywhere," I thought to myself as I checked carefully to see if I could spot the little guy. Seeing nothing, I resumed the task at hand. Grasping the nail clippers firmly in one hand, I got ready to cut directly into the trash and THE SPIDER WAS RIGHT THERE IN THE TRASH, STARING AT ME WITH ITS EIGHT BEADY EYES!

You may notice the structure of this is exactly like a jump scare in a horror movie, and that's exactly how it worked out. They build you up, with the hero walking slowly down the hall, slooowly opening the door, letting the music crescendo, and then... Oh, it was just the cat. And then they turn around and HOLYCRAPTHEMONSTERISRIGHTBEHINDYOUAIEEEEEEE!

Anyways, I was of course traumatized and horrified by this experience, but then I killed it with a decorative candle (because it was close by, and there is nothing manlier than using a sheerly decorative implement for raining unholy fury on your enemies) and moved on with my life. That's what has happened to me. I experienced what amounts to basically the second act of a horror movie, and then I was like, "Meh, no biggie," and finished clipping my nails because, hey, they needed it.

And that, I am convinced, is how horror movies happen. Basically, you just become really jaded to all the crazy stuff happening around you, and move on with your life, because what are you supposed to about it? I mean, today I found a spider leg sitting on some papers and was like "Oh, that's weird," and dumped it in the trash. Now, I feel like I shouldn't need to say this, but just in case your flight just got in from planet We Don't Have Spiders Here, What's the Big Deal? and are not accustomed to human customs and culture, THAT IS NOT A NORMAL REACTION TO FINDING A SPIDERS DISEMBODIED LIMB!

But the worst part of all that is this: horror movies don't end with the hero having a jump scare and then laughing it off. Horror movies end when the protagonist confronts the monster, and that monster is usually the biggest, scariest version of whatever crap he's been dealing with through the whole movie. So now I am convinced that there is an enormous spider waiting around somewhere (possibly in my garage) waiting for me to confront it so I can get some closure on this whole thing. Or worse yet, all the spiders in my house are going to gang up and create one giant, Voltron-like Mega-Spider that re-forms every time you cut off one of its limbs. Or it may take the form of a supernatural entity composed of the spirits of the hundreds of spiders I have killed since moving here. I just don't know. But just in case, I am ordering an industrial size barrel of raid, a beekeepers suit, and a military grade flame thrower. And if you hear about the west side of Provo burning to the ground, I just want you to know that I did it to save humanity from The Dark and Ravenous Spider-God Atlach'Nacha.