Ten Banalities of Quite Stultifying Terror



For your consideration, ten things that are far more terrifying than a Human Centipede. Sometimes you don't need to camp out at Crystal Lake or buy a house on Elm Street. Sometimes the most horrifying things can be found right under your nose, in everyday life. What follows is ten of the most piddle-inducingly scary - yet utterly banal - things that are out there right now...*


10. The BT adverts - Because nothing says "buy a new telephone" like the crushing, depressing triviality of everyday life. There are few incentives liable to make me upgrade my broadband like social awkwardness and having to put up with someone else's shit children. Since 2005 here in the UK, we've watched Adam and Jane go about their everyday lives. Adam's moved in with Jane and her kids from a previous relationship; he's had to deal with her son taking an initial dislike to him; accidentally flirting with her friends; her shit of a daughter hogging the TV with Hannah fucking Montana. And now they're getting married. We live in a dull, grey little world and the BT adverts incessantly remind us of this. Our lives are dreary, miserable, pointless and plotless; the best you can do is buy a shiny new phone so's you can make those uninteresting telephone conversations sound that little bit crisper.

9. Justin Bieber - A horror of Lovecraftian proportions, this. His increasing popularity can be explained in one of two equally terrifying ways: either the world's children are getting dumber and dumber, or its paedophiles are spending a shitload on CDs. Bieber's meteoric rise to fame is made all the more saddening by the fact that it came just after the death of Michael Jackson. Another slap in the face to the King of Pop, who would've loved a bit of the Bieber.

8. Empty shops - Picture it. You've a day off've work and a wallet full of cash. You wander into town, hoping to splash out on a new DVD, CD, book or jacket. You walk into a shop. Your favourite DVD, CD, Book & Jacket shop. A deafening silence greets you. The shelves are chock full of stock. The aisles are empty. A team of sales assistants stare at you as you try to browse. You either hastily grab the nearest thing to hand and purchase it, or you flee. There's a reason the shop's empty, surely? Now run, before they cut off your legs and sell them.

I too dreamed a dream. Susan Boyle was in it and I pissed myself.

6. Horses - A ha ha ha ha haaa, look, the 24-year-old man's scared of My Little Pony. Shut up and think about it. Last week I had the misfortune of being packed away to a works' weekend in the country. This involved barbeque, camping and orienteering excercises. Being an idiot, yours truly was quickly quite lost. Much of it resembled an episode of L O S T. I wandered around the woods for a good two hours, drenched by rain and under attack from smoke monsters (well, chain smoking idiot colleagues). And then there were the horses. During our misadventures, we ended up traipsing through a big empty field. Well, empty save for the fucking horses. Lots of horses with big horsey penises. I'm not ashamed to admit that the thought of death by horse rape crossed my mind. Until you've had the thousand-yard-stare from a horse, you don't know fear. One of them whinnied and I shat myself.

5. Frozen Prawns - Not such an obvious one, but I had a fear of frozen prawns well into my teenage years. Ever read HP Lovecraft? I swear to thee, his Old Ones and fishy things would blatantly resemble frozen prawns. TRUE FACT: in his foetal stages, Justin Beiber was a frozen prawn.

Our country's newspapers told us to vote for this, and blindly we did. Now we have a Prime Minister called 'Dave'.

3. Live from Studio Five - Sorry, another one for the Brits amongst us. If you're not aware, Live From Studio Five is a late-afternoon talk show in which an ex-footballer, an ex-model and a(?) talk utter bollocks for an hour. Live From Studio Five is Mike Judge's Idiocracy made real and is, like the proliferation of the Justins Beiber and Lee Collins, symptomatic of the nation's stupiddening. It's produced by Sky News and is so trivial and so idiotic that it'll make your brain hurt.


2. That dream where all your teeth fall out - According to a mister Freud, the 'teeth falling out' dream is symbolic of castration as punishment for masturbation. Obviously, I have totally never had that dream...

1. Twilight - Everything about Twilight scares me. Well, save for the things that are supposed to be scary. It normalises emotional abuse and makes it seem aspirational. It was written by a woman that's never read Dracula and couldn't give a fuck about vampire fiction. It has a horrible insidous religious undercurrent (if Meyer was a half-decent writer, that undercurrent might be dangerous). It has a fucking adult fall in love with a baby. Once more, it rewards idiocy and ineptitude with fame and a multi-sequel deal. It has a fucking adult fall in love with a baby. Twilight will bring about the Idiot Apocalypse. You have been warned.

Sucking ass: less terrifying and more preferable than Twilight.


* Well, you might have to go and look for them. But they're there all right.

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