Halloween Movie Review

Tis the season of halloween.   Thus the bane of my wife's existence: Horror Movies.  That means any movie that mentions death, blood, zombies, exorcisms, massacres, kittens and the number 13 on video store's shelves should be the perfect movie for this season.  And you would be wrong.  There Will be Blood, much to my dismay, had nothing to do with vampires.  How can you have a vampire movie with no vampires?  I think part of the issue was maybe they didn't have enough time to introduce the vampires.  There were maybe 5 scenes that took place during the night and I kept looking in the background to maybe find one.   There was also a lot of wood around which made it easy to make stakes, also one of the character had a cross around his neck.  Daring was the spurning of old mythos that garlic would deter vampires and replacing that with a new mythos of gigantic mustaches, but beyond that no mention of vampires.

I guess the movie was about something else.  Maybe it was hollywoods attempt to say that the only good people are young idealists that are deaf or who were abused as children.  Maybe it is a public service announcement that children should be wary of holes in the ground as they may cause sudden deafness.  Maybe saying to us that private bowling alleys are not the best place to escape from a madman.   Maybe that oil and milkshakes are great analogies for each other (I saw this in a Shell commercial as well).   Maybe it is saying Californians are evil.

I tend to see Daniel Plainview Day Lewis as more of a hero than an anti-hero.  Who wants to have friends or deal with people who are unable to make decisions?  'Friends' just let you down, move away, get married, hang out with other friends, have family activities, have to go to bed,  go to work, go on vacations,  eat,  etc.   Who wants to retire anymore?  Who doesn't get excited by fire?  These are qualities of a true hero.  Well the killing doesn't quite fit in there.   Nonetheless I think my point is made.

Hollywood seems to have a poor opinion of the early 1900s as well.  I can't recall a single picture I've seen covering that era that has a high opinion of those people in that time.  Especially those in the west.  They were all bible thumping, land grabbing, self-serving, weak people.  Maybe they are right, maybe it was a bad time for americans as we embraced our industrial phase.  Or maybe we are overly critical and use broad generalizations about a time and people we have a hard time understanding.  I'm sure it would make more sense with more vampires.