Victor Davis Hanson crankily informs the universe that he doesn’t like the movies today, the teevee shows today, the jungle music today, or anything else of today, because it’s all Mao Mao Mao all the time… I guess these days even Matlock sounds like he’s going commie.

Poor misfortunate bastard. Fortunately for VD, though, over at Townhall the always astonishing John Hawkins (a particular friend of our Mr. Bogg) has some recommendations for exciting, spooky, 100% Pure Guaranteed Right Wing Ideologically Correct Horror Movies, presumably because individuals of the America-lovin’ Red-hatin’ VD Hanson class haven’t seen anything really spine-tingling thrilling along these lines since those smash-hit Abu Ghraib pictures came out.

These sorts of Top Conservative Lists always have a few things in common, such as that they’re idiotic, not least because their authors always have to apologize about the fact that there really isn’t any such thing as an avowedly “conservative” songs or movie (or anything else) that don’t suck abominably (ahem). This is likely because the obsessions of the contemporary American Right have become obscure to the point of impenetrability. They can’t even make good propaganda anymore: Glenn Beck is a genius with his target audience of resentful paranoid obsessives, for instance, but by and large nobody else can figure out just why, exactly, he’s sobbing and gibbering. Maoists! In the White House! Eek! Huh? It’s just brainwashing the choir.

So when it comes to Horror Films as Conservative, if you want to even try that, you have to pretend that Cloverfield is “conservative” because in it “the military was in the thick of the action, bravely fighting the Cloverfield monster”; presumably if this were a liberal film, the military would be trying to waterboard it and flush its Koran down the toilet. Likewise, The Exorcist is “conservative” on the grounds that “it does feature self-sacrificing priests who are fighting spiritually against true evil,” instead of having gay sex with it.

And never mind the point that lots of horror films are pretty “conservative” in key charming ways, either, what with the message that teen sex leads to bloody evisceration and all: “sluts have it coming” is surely a fundamental premise of right-wing culture warring. See, to even make such a critique, you’re in a different world than 21st Century Wingnuttia, where everything has to be judged by the terms of the cult. Which, as it emerges, are gorier and more disturbing than anything you’ll ever see out of Hollywood. Take it away, John Hawkins:

The Tripper (2007): This movie is meant to be a slap at Ronald Reagan and conservatives. In a couple of spots near the end of the movie, it does manage to grate conservative sensibilities. However, that mild annoyance does not to detract from the sweet, sweet joy of watching a guy in a Ronald Reagan mask taking an ax to dirty, drug addled hippies throughout the movie. If a conservative had made this movie, instead of David Arquette, liberals would be calling it a “hate crime.”

The films that play on endless internal loops in their heads — now, that’s good Horror Schlock for you! (And, of course, you know what recent, crappy blood-spattered movie VD Hanson did watch with enthusiastic glee? Go on, guess! See also Roy.)


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