We Need A Monster

I had a dream the other night that I was sitting around a poker table with the Universal Monsters. You know the guys, Frankenstein, the Wolfman, the Mummy, the Creature from the Black Lagoon, Dracula and the Invisible Man. Don't ask why we were playing poker, it was a dream, we just were. As I recall the Invisible Man was cheating and Frankenstein was eating the chips. Then I went all-in even though I was holding a pair of twos and they came for me menacingly. Then I woke up.
   Sure, it ended on a slightly scary note - who wants to be surrounded by the Universal Monsters? - but it wasn't bloody or violent or alarmingly realistic. It was the good sort of scary, the safe sort of scary, like I got when I was eight years old and saw the Creature from the Black Lagoon for the first time. On a Saturday afternoon, when all good monster movies should be shown.
   We need that kind of scary back again. We need monsters who are frightening but not too frightening. We get enough realism with the country fighting two or three wars, with all the financial parasites ruining the economy, with clearly incompetent government officials texting and having affairs and meeting for trysts in bathrooms. It's crazy out there, why does our entertainment have to be crazier? Can't it be gentler? Sweeter? A release instead of a reminder? Say what you will about the Hays Commission and its somewhat arbitrary standards, movie studios adhering to its code produced some really, really fine works of art.
   I think tonight I want to dream about playing football with Frankenstein and the Mummy. I might not be the fastest sprinter, but I'm for damn sure faster than those two.


* just had another one of those deja vu moments, right in front of the computer. Freaky.