In my article, Jaws vs. Jurassic Park, I mentioned one of my qualifications for whether or not something is horror was how hard a threat is to combat or avoid. Lately, I have been thinking about concepts of the genre that pertain more to the latter. I like to daydream a lot, and I often find myself wondering what I would do in a character’s place. It’s easy to say you would make a better survival choice until you consider factors such as being caught off guard and panicking. To me, monsters fall into two categories.
The first is the immediate threat, where if a character is unfortunate enough to find themselves in the territory of some malevolent force, they will have a hell of a time trying to escape, but if they manage to, they don’t have to worry about it anymore. Think Jeepers Creepers and Pennywise, since both only stay within a certain area when they hunt. The second category is looming threats that follow characters around. They are either impossible to get completely rid of or the process is extremely difficult. Ju On would be a good example of this because, if I recall right, I think the curse could be passed on to anyone from those who were initially haunted.
I just looked it up, and that appears to be the case. That would be the most rotten luck. You pass someone on the street.
“Hey, nice shirt.”
And the next thing you know, some pale ghost woman in a white gown is strangling you to death with her hair. Okay, I am exaggerating a bit, but still. In such a world, this kind of thing would kill communication as we know it. From what I just looked up (because it’s been a minute since I watched those movies), for the curse to spread, someone either has to have deep knowledge of it or be associated with someone who does. That’s way worse than Ringu.
At least with that, the curse (or infection in the books) only extends to those who have watched the tape or (again in the books) read a vivid description of it. Now imagine if you got a visit from Sadako or Samara because one of your friends wanted to be stupid and watch the tape. It’s pretty much the scenario you would find yourself in Ju On. That is, if I am interpreting things correctly. You’d hope that if something similar were to happen in real life, people would be sensible and avoid spreading hazardous information.
Remember the pandemic? Yeah, those kinds of ghosts would have a field day. It’s the detrimental defiance in certain people. It’s not inherently negative. In the face of unfairness, it’s a welcome trait. It’s when it flies in the face of common sense that it becomes stubbornness, making everyone worse off. Sometimes, all you can do is try to help yourself and your loved ones. This is where common sense comes in handy, except there’s no agreement on what that actually is, even if it seems self-explanatory. For example, let’s say you and your friends are being hunted by a killer. The immediate solutions would either be A. Utilizing some method of escape, B. Hiding somewhere you can call for help without being discovered quickly, or C. Finding weapons to fight back with. Depending on how many people are in your group, all of these could be attempted to varying degrees of success, but which of these falls into the category of common sense?
A may seem to be the answer, except if someone wants you dead, they likely aren’t going to call it quits so easily. What about B? All it takes is someone accidentally knocking something over, and you’re as good as gone. C would have to be the way to solve the problem, then, right? What if the killer has a better weapon?
I suppose each one depends on the circumstances of the situation. In It Follows, the only options could be A. and C. B can’t be one because the entity has a supernatural sense of its target. While they aren’t long-term due to it being seemingly immortal, they can keep it at bay. Some have proposed some NSFW methods to throw the entity off, mainly doing the deed with multiple people simultaneously.
There’s an assumption in this that the entity can’t pursue multiple targets at once, and there’s no evidence of this. If anything, all this may end up doing is creating several new instances of it, sort of akin to what was implied to have happened in the ending of Smile 2. Speaking of which, how in the hell do you deal with something like that? Film theory suggests anti schizophrenic medication. Again, though, there’s no proof this would work.
After all, we’re talking about a supernatural entity or a demon or whatever you want to call it, not a brain disorder, so we can’t truly apply the same logic. The only real argument that could be made is that the entity may be able to access the brain chemistry of its victims. Therefore, that type of medication would cut off its access, which is again, an assumption. The curse can be gotten rid of through murder. The obvious problem with this, aside from prison, is having to kill.
The only method that would work would be extremely authoritarian. You would have to find out who was infected and remove them from society. Now that I think about it, that method might work to deal with the entity in It Follows. Okay, not exactly dealing with, as in getting rid of, it would be more like keeping it at bay.
The entity is strong, as evidenced by the bone-breaking scenes. That said, it wasn’t as if it was punching through solid concrete, so I think it would be possible to somehow trap the entity. Here’s how I imagine this playing out. Prepping by putting out a bunch of something that you can leave footprints in would be the first step. Think flour. Wet paint should work too.
Plus, once you discern the entity’s position, you can throw more on its body to fully expose it. After that, it should be easy to keep it away from its target, then knock it into a secure container with chains before tossing it into the nearest deep body of water. Unless it pulls some despawn respawn horseshit, this should work. Then again, there’s always a way to bring the monster back. In the meantime, this article has been enjoyable to write.
I may write another like it in the future because it’s fun to put yourself in a character’s shoes. Until then, thanks for reading, and see you next time.
