Unexpectedly, these movies have proved salutary. For some reason the Saw movies comfort me. They provide a needed processing space for some emotional truths I have been avoiding.
This is more personal information than I would normally share, but scenes from the TCM kept running through my head the last time I saw my family. The hurt was subterranean, as were the attacks. I don’t know what sustained physical abuse is like–I was often spanked, sometimes slapped, but never endured the sorts of things one reads about–but it has long seemed to me that in physical abuse there is at least clarity about the nature of the assault. Being hit often in the dark leaves one both in pain and confused.
Be all that as it may, let me offer a short truth:
The lesson of Horror movies is that in a just world there is cruelty.
Now, this may make no sense to you. The “problem of pain” has been around since there have been theologians and philosophers.
Let me define “just” as: conducive to needed learning. Let me define cruelty as: “unwanted and seemingly excessive pain”.
I am tempted to keep talking, but I think I am walking past something, so I will leave it here.