Rilaly's Blog
Simple Truths

Everybody’s favorite clown Dougie ventures out a little too far in the swamp. “Didn’t you hear the Native American woman say there’s a monster in the lake?” one of the great looking people on shore screams. Dougie doesn’t know the golden rule of modern day cinema: Always listen to Native Americans, especially if they speak in hallowed tones. “You’ve gone too far Dougie!” all the great looking people on shore begin screaming. “Come back!”

“C’mon ya chickens!” Dougie says backstroking leisurely. “It’s fun. There’s nothing out here!”

At this point, we hear the music that spells out the impending doom, and then we hear a subtle roar. We tense up, we’re mentally screaming at Dougie to get out of the water. The great looking people on shore are in hysterics now screaming that they see swirling waters. “Dougie please!

“Ah, shut up!” everybody’s favorite clown Dougie says waving off their warnings. The trouble is the actor who plays Dougie is slightly unattractive and out of shape. Those of us who have watched movies for decades know he’s in trouble.

The monster roars up to an impossible height. Dougie looks up at it, and he begins screaming. The monster takes its time, so we can see the full breadth of its horror. It gnashes its teeth a little, it swivels its head about, and it looks menacingly at Dougie. Dougie continues to look up, and he continues to scream, as the monster lowers onto him and bites his head off. The fact that this scene took a whole fifteen seconds causes those of us who have watched too many horror movies to squirm.

Why didn’t he just move, is a question I’ve asked for decades. Why did he sit there and scream for fifteen seconds? I could live with the fact that the monster would’ve moved through the water quicker than Dougie, had Dougie attempted to swim away. It’s more acquatic than Dougie. I could’ve also live with the fact that Dougie probably didn’t have much of a chance the minute he jumped into the water, but as an audience member who gets titillated by horror, I would like to see the horror movie victims do a little more to survive.

When I found out that actors have to “hit their mark” and stay on it, I was a little less disgusted with the actors who played Dougie types. I still wanted them to move, but I realized that they were instructed by the director to stay on the spot he designated as the perfect spot for the angle he wanted on the decapitation scene. The cliché scene may strike horror in some, but I would venture to say that those people are usually under thirty. For the rest of us, it’s just plain irrational that a person wouldn’t move, or do anything and everything they can, for their own survival.

Author Douglas McRaney argues that not only are Dougie’s reactions rational, but they are actually closer to the truth than anything I call for. The book McRaney wrote is called “You Are Not so Smart”, and it says that the only aspect of such a scene that may be overdramatized is Dougie’s screaming.

Casual, non-psychology types believe that there are two basic reactions humans will have in the face of catastrophic, chaotic moments: action and non-action. There are those who act, in other words, and those who choke. Those who act may also be broken down into two categories: those who act to selfishly save themselves, and those who act in a heroic fashion to save others, but there are still only two basic reactions that casual, non-psychology types list.

McRaney argues that there is a third course of action, and it is the course that most of us are likely to follow in unprecedented moments of chaos and horror. It is called fear bradycardia. Fear bradycardia is the idea that a person simply stops moving and hopes for the best. It is, argues McRaney, an automatic and involuntary instinct in all of us. Fear bradycardia is also referred to as tonic immobility, but no matter what it’s called it falls under the umbrella of normalcy bias.