Stark Realities

A young boy’s love for horror movies drove him to act against the social contexts that provoke these fictional travesties

Story by JACK CARBALLO

When I was 8 years old, I would stack a border of pillows at each edge of my bed before going to sleep. I did this so if I turned to either side and opened my eyes, I wouldn’t risk the chance of a pale, wide-eyed, gaping face staring at me viciously.

Such was my fear after watching the movie “The Grudge,” in which a woman and her child are painfully murdered by an abusive husband. Due to the horrid nature of her death, she takes the supernatural form of an onryō.

An onryō is a wrathful spirit that causes physical and emotional pain to the living to exact vengeance for the nature of its cruel death, according to traditional Japanese beliefs and literature.

As a child, I watched her unsettling, fixated glare shift and snap with each crunch of her twisted body. Symphonized with a haunting croak, it was something I never wanted to encounter in real life. But I also felt profound empathy for the character and never saw her as an antagonist, but a victim of cruelty.

I would often lie awake thinking of ways to be on good terms with such a vengeful entity, even at an age where I was uncertain of its legitimacy. The imagery was enough to leave a lasting impact on me.

I never wanted to be the sort of person to deserve to die at the hands of this type of energy, nor be the type who would contribute to the situations that provoke tragedies like hers.

I spent time doing research in the library of my elementary school on supernatural folklore. I soon learned the leading cause for spirits to reside in the living world is when they feel intense emotions of rage and despair upon their death.

“Not me,” I said to myself in the library, “I’m going to be nice and loving to everybody I meet.”

Within me sparked a divine and profound sense of compassion for all living things and their emotions, to a degree kid-oriented movies never had. Was it the stark nature of cruelty and sorrow in our world? I believe so.

Do I believe every child needs to be traumatized by the horrors of reality in order to see the vast levels of social and cultural injustice and disparity in the world? No, but for 8-year-old me, I was shell-shocked and knew I could never go back.

I started to reflect and see how directors and writers derive the depraved contexts of horror movies from real scenarios, and involve situations that tests the humanity and morality of the protagonists.

While some films were outlandish ideas with unrealistic monsters and creatures, there was always a greater theme or message to be taken away. I couldn’t help but deeply empathize with the main characters by putting myself in their shoes mentally and emotionally.

I believe in doing this, I learned there are many ways people in real life combat and process strenuous scenarios, some of which may be life or death. This helped me nurture a vivid sense of compassion for what other people are going through, and to respect that by trying to help however possible.

I started to piece together whether it was a problem big or small, there were people around me who were dealing with their own horror scenarios in their own way.

I would often pass my message to other friends in my grade and be met with looks of confusion, but I continued to encourage sympathy toward others.

Both of my parents were avid lovers of cinema and theater, which structured a layer of appreciation toward the execution of narratives and storytelling for me. My mother was surely against these gross films, and while it was my father whom I’d watch horror movies with, they both knew there was more to these tales than simple scare tactics and gore cosmetics.

There were countless other movies down the road that illustrated other concepts of humanity and morality for me. “Pet Sematary” for instance, introduced me to the concept of grieving and boding the devastating consequences of small mistakes. This is when father Louis Creed buries his infant son, killed by a semi truck, in an ancient burial ground rumored to resurrect those buried there. The child comes back only to slaughter the entire family.

“The Ring” was another example of spreading kindness to others, or else they would die sorrowful deaths and come back to haunt you.

Children’s movies like “Shrek” taught me inner beauty is a far more worthy judge of character than appearances, and money and social status cannot replace significant relationships. A heartwarming lesson, but it just didn’t resonate with me in the way viewing these stark realities did.

Everybody’s environment and experiences shape who they are and influence in what ways they interpret and contribute to society. Mine just so happened to be in the form of witnessing atrocities on screen at a young age.

Fast forward eight years later to a distraught version of myself, just getting out of a bad high school break up. Me and two of my best friends, Michael and Joey, were feeling risky and wanted to try our luck with a Ouija board.

We tore up a pizza box, wrote the alphabet, the words “yes” and “no” and numbers one through 10 on it with a marker, using a piece of cardboard as the moving cursor. We waited until 3 a.m., when it’s rumored for the barrier between the physical world and spiritual world to be thinnest.

We lit the candles and hit the lights, drawing an eerie brisk of air to the basement we were in. Orange dancing glows bounced off the drywall and our expressions.

We looked one another in the eyes and swore we wouldn’t move the cursor on our own.

Michael recited a loose protection prayer stating any being to make contact was prohibited from crossing over to our world. We spoke with a confidence that if something did contact us, it would for some reason obey us.

“Is there anybody here who would like to make contact?” Michael said in a low, hesitant voice.

What was the quiet of an ordinary night became dead silence that enveloped every thought and movement in the room. The dark corners of the room suddenly felt dense and occupied, and the candlelight flicker radiated bleak and dim.

Like a hermit crab under its shell, the cursor scooted; inching centimeter by centimeter in such sporadic jolts we struggled to keep our fingers hovered over its position.

I looked at Michael and Joey in simple disbelief; it was plainly obvious none of us had been moving it, as the cursor soon performed confident creeping strides toward the corner of the board.

Coming to a dragging halt, the cursor stopped on the word “Yes.”

Joey, in awe, let out a quiet gasping laugh. I found myself somewhat excited as well, but more intrigued.

The weight of its presence in the air sifted over us like a thick cloud staring down from every particle. We were engulfed by its energy and no longer felt in control of our surroundings.

I could see the fear and uncertainty in Michael’s face, seeing how it was his house we were in and he had been explicitly instructed by his mom to never use a Oujia board.

The next morning she scolded us with no holds barred, asking why we would risk inviting something like that into her home. Even as a teenager, I recall the look on her face and her frigid tone as being colder than I’d ever seen her.

I sometimes think back to that night and find myself deep in thought, speculating how before my eyes, an inanimate object moved on its own, plain as day.

To this day, I know I’ll never be able to convince everybody what I saw was real, but for me, it was enough.

It was enough to understand there are larger forces in the universe that pit us against trying hardships and relationships. It was an experience that deepened my perception of reality and compassion for what types of fates people and all life face.

It strengthened my understanding of the myriad of struggles and challenges we try to overcome, and that not all of them are won.

Some realities sting and some of them rejoice, but what I believe is most important to take away is that you’re never alone. Nobody deserves to feel alone, and nobody deserves to feel helpless.

What motivated me when I was younger was to ask myself, “How could I help people see that?”