Pop Culture Horror Movie Metaphors Suck

The monsters are all around us; they are us.

Zombies? They're the easiest to find. They're the people who think of nothing but satisfying their mindless appetites. They've learned just enough to know what they must do to survive: work equals money equals food. When they're not hungry, they either sleep or stare. They lurch around you in the streets, in the supermarkets, in the lines and queues all over the world. The only reason they would look your way is when you might somehow serve their need. They will think nothing of hurting, destroying you to get what they want, so the best thing you can do is keep from being seen when they hunger. The only thing that will stop them is force, but that doesn't mean that they respect force; respect is as alien to them as subtlety. They live in a binary world where things are either Food or Not Food.

Vampires are also rather common. They are just as single-minded and driven, but they have a veneer of sophistication and normalcy that the zombies lack. They can pretend to be human when they have to; it's only when their hunger, addiction, or higher purpose consumes them that they are revealed to be monsters. They will drain you dry before they move on- less wasteful, perhaps, than the zombies, but more likely to insidiously insert themselves into your life. Vampires are specialists; anything but their passion is worthless. Sure, other things may be useful on occasion, but only as it serves the central goal. The rank and file are nothing but cheap addicts, destructive to those around them but eventually reducing themselves to little more than zombies. Beware of the Counts and Countesses of the clan, for they are cunning and ruthless; they grow in power and subtlety with every person they feed upon. You can find them at the end of a trail of ruined lives and wasted years; they feast in luxury while the people responsible for the banquet waste away and perish. They are the cold-hearted royalty, the captains of industry, the superstars; they are the goal-oriented achievers of the monster world.

Werewolves are another common monster. Like the vampires, they seem human until it is too late...and like the zombies, they are ravenous brutes. But they show their true selves only when the time is right; some specific trigger sets off the change, and in the morning all that remains is the evidence of savage destruction. The night of the full moon can come anytime- perhaps after a singular trauma, perhaps a night of heavy drinking, perhaps the cheering of the crowd or an embarrassment by the majority. Suddenly all reason and restraint disappears, and you are nothing but a savage beast who wants to hurt and crush and rape and rend. You no longer care for love and beauty, in fact such things enrage you in your bestial mood. Nothing satisfies you or even really pleases you until the fit has passed.

All of these monsters share certain things. For one, they tend to infect others. One human among a crowd of monsters is nothing but a target. You're almost certain to be destroyed unless you become a monster yourself. You might be able to outrun and escape the zombies if you're smart enough and fast enough, but the vampire will seek you out once they know you're there...and there's no way of telling when the wolfman will appear among you.

On the good side, every monster has a weakness. There's always some relatively simple thing that you can discover to protect yourself, or end the menace. Each monster has their own individual Achilles heel, and if they know nothing else, they know how to keep that information secret. Time is always on the monster's side- once you see the monster, it's probably too late...and the longer they're out there, the harder they are to stop. Even if you manage to live your entire life without being destroyed by a monster or becoming one yourself, you may never have the resources or opportunity to keep them from spreading and taking over. Even if random chance doesn't make a wolfman out of you, your only choice (if you have a choice at all) usually amounts to whether you get to become a vampire or just another zombie. In life, there are very few Van Helsings or silver bullets, and the crosses and garlic work about as well as you might expect.

Personally, I love horror movies. But after an hour or two, they end; whether the hero triumphs or perishes, the lights come up, and you can laugh and go for drinks or a bite to eat and talk about how much fun it was (or wasn't).

Life, however, just keeps going. The real horrors keep piling up. The real zombies and vampires and wolfmen just keep feeding and destroying and infecting everything. There's no escape and no stake through the heart of the problem, just a series of hastily boarded-up doors and windows to keep the monsters out for the time being. Life is one of those movies where (despite all hopes and best efforts) the main character always dies at the end.

Boo.