Television makes your head explode

 

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I have a little quirk: I have a hard time enduring realistically violent movies (“Se7en” and “Face/Off” make me squirm just thinking about them), but cartoonish horror-movie violence makes me laugh like a little girl. Vampires, monsters, aliens: bring 'em on, the bloodier the better, and let's hear some bones crunching while we're at it.

 

So I was making a list in my head, and all of a sudden I realized that some of my favorite horror movies involve . . . TV. “Videodrome.” “Poltergeist.” And, embarrassingly enough, the worst of the Halloween series, “Halloween III: Season of the Witch” (otherwise known as “That Halloween film that doesn't even have Michael Myers in it.”)

 

In “Videodrome,” TV is shooting nasty radiation, or some kind of weird signal, into your brain, and it does things to you. Not unlike the way TV really works.

 

In “Halloween III,” a very bad man uses TV to shoot weird supernatural boombah into kids' Halloween masks, which makes their heads collapse and bugs shoot out of their eyes. Again, as I said, not unlike the way TV really works.

 

In “Poltergeist,” the TV is a conduit for bad things to come into your nice comfortable home and mess you up. Again, not unlike . . .

 

I can think of lots of other horror movies with TVs in them. One nice variation is “The Ring,” in which it's not the TV that kills you, it's the videotape you watch on the TV. (This is why I'm trying to get rid of all of my videotapes.)

 

So what's this all about? Most horror-movie standbys tap into deep fears and/or deep desires. Much has been written lately about the meaning of vampires (sex = blood = death, etc.). Witches reflect the patriarchy's fear of and contempt for women. Aliens and monsters are all about paranoia and fear of the unknown.

 

It's easy to find a pop-psychology reason for the demonization of TV in horror movies. TV is a conduit; it brings things into our homes. Sometimes we invite them and sometimes we don't. It's also a huge Cyclops eye sitting in the living room, staring back at you while you stare at it.

 

This is not necessarily a warrantless fear. Think about Vance Packard's "Hidden Persuaders.” Subliminal messages. Hidden agendas. Schizophrenics sometimes develop the belief that television advertisements are speaking directly to them.

 

But – here's the thing – television advertisements really are speaking directly to us.

 

Here's the lesson we can derive from all this: make friends with your TV, whatever you do. You really don't want it to be mad at you.

 

It might make you do things.

 

 

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