T w e n t y S i d e d

So Jess gets pulled out through the window. I can’t wait to find out the killer is a six and a half foot tall bodybuilder that can bash through this window and dead-lift an uncooperative and physically fit subject through the ragged opening without slicing his own arms to shreds. I guess he’s also psychic, since he knew she was going to stop just inside the door to make this move possible.

Yeah, yeah. People keep telling me “it’s all explained later”. Okay fine. The problem is that the story hasn’t given me any reason to believe that any of this is possible. I’ve basically stopped believing in the world at this point.

I think our format is working against me here. I’m watching all of the episodes twice: Once when we record and again when we post. But it’s a week between new episodes for me. This is a lot of scrutiny on a story that’s probably not designed for it, and it’s taking a long time to reach the justifications. Objections that might normally be after-the-fact bits of fridge logic end up nagging me during the experience.

Shamus Young is a programmer, an author, and nearly a composer. He works on this site full time. If you'd like to support him, you can do so via Patreon or PayPal.

It’s really bugging me that we haven’t yet settled on what genre our psycho killer belongs to. Is this a vengeful spirit? A particularly motivated and resourceful crazy person (or persons) like in Scream? A supernaturally strong (and possibly mortal-ish) killer like Jason? In some scenes we’ve got people wearing masks but in other scenes we’ve got supernatural stuff (like the girl that Rutskarn pointed out) and I have no idea where the story is going.

Note that I’m not asking you to tell me in the comments. I’m saying at this point in the story I’d like to know what sorts of disbelief I should start suspending.

In general I find ghosts, spooks, and monsters much more interesting for these kinds of stories. Enabling a mortal to pick off a large group like this usually forces the writer to cheat their ass off and make the baddie omniscient, insanely lucky, and hyper-capable. The longer the spree goes on the less I can believe in the story. Meanwhile, ghosts and monsters can do whatever the author says they can do. They don’t need to spend six consecutive hours crouching in a crawlspace while their rubber mask fills with sweat, waiting for the exact moment when the right person enters the room without turning on the light so they can be properly jump-scared.

EDIT: And yes I realize this is totally the wrong mindset for this genre. Sorry. I literally can’t help thinking about this stuff when examining a story. It’s completely involuntary, and probably explains why I enjoy Japanese horror but have such a hard time liking American stuff.

Shamus Young is a programmer, an author, and nearly a composer. He works on this site full time. If you'd like to support him, you can do so via Patreon or PayPal.