I recently stumbled across a 2014 film, The Scarehouse, written and directed by Gavin Michael Booth. I had watched one of Booth’s other films, Last Call, which I enjoyed very much, and when Gavin himself told me that Scarehouse was a “polar opposite” of Last Call, my curiosity was definitely piqued. So, I checked it out.
I won’t bore anyone with the plot details, as those can be found online. But let me just say it has to do with revenge for past events. In fact, it involves quite an elaborate scheme, one that ends up getting a fair number of people killed.
Some of the reviews I saw online called the film a slasher-type movie, somewhat repetitive, and even too gory in its graphic depiction of violence.
I don’t share any of those views, having seen the film myself. For starters, while there is some of that slashing, and other stuff, going on, it is a far cry from your typical slasher movie. For example, there is no “monster” in a William Shatner mask or some deranged “Jigsaw”. The characters (an all-female cast) in the film are all real-life and realistic characters, and the perpetrators’ identities are revealed pretty much from the start. In those other movies, blood and gore make their appearance, because people who go and see them want to see precisely that: blood and gore. In The Scarehouse, however, blood and gore are simply the necessary “by-product” of the process, of the why that drives the two main characters.
Too many of the standard slasher movies involve silly and childish characters, complete with all the stereotypes one would expect. This is most decidedly not the case in this film.
I always look for a message in films and books, and I believe most of those who wrote some of the reviews I mentioned before lost sight of that. They saw a torture scene or the brandishing of a knife, and just like that, they’d labelled the movie and were done with it.
To me, though, the film is about a common problem, one that affects way too many people and that often has a way of making people’s lives miserable, or more miserable, trapping them in a mental prison. A way of looking at the world that ends in depression, addiction or possibly death for many. The film’s use of “violence”, in my view, serves as a stark and vivid carrier of its message (as I interpret it). Some messages need to be delivered with a bit of “shock value” to sink in.
What am I talking about? About the past and how some people obsess over it, especially about mistakes made or wrongs suffered. That “what if” scenario takes hold and starts eating away like a cancer from the inside. Yes, rationally, everyone understands that we don’t have time machines that would allow us to change or rewrite the past, but mentally and emotionally, some start obsessing over that “what if” aspect of the past, or an alternative past.
We all have regrets about things we did to ourselves and to others, as well as about things done to us. Turning back the wheel of time is a common fantasy or daydream for all of us at some point. Sometimes we want to do things differently and, thus, improve our present and future life; at other times, we may feel aggrieved by others and fantasize about giving them a taste of their own medicine—even when our mind plays a trick on us and makes us believe that others were somehow responsible for our misfortune that we, in fact, brought on all by ourselves.
As I said, we all have those little fantasies once in a while. They can help us analyze our past and draw lessons from it that we can apply going forward—provided we keep our eyes pointed to the future, and don’t get stuck on the past. Sadly, some people get stuck. Once the realization sets in that the past can’t be changed, they become depressed or addicted to one substance or another, which often causes many of them to take their own lives. Others in that group try to assign blame for whatever happened in the past, and once they think they’ve identified the guilty parties, they start plotting their revenge—a surefire way to mess up their lives even more.
Essentially, this is what happens in this film. The main characters, having served their time behind bars for the death of a young man a few years before the movie’s timeline, could have made a fresh start. Instead, they were still stuck in the past, with revenge being their sole motivation and purpose.
Most people, of course, will never go to the lengths the two main characters in this film go to get even with their “enemies”, but even every little grudge or decision never to talk to this or that person ever again follows the same pattern—a pattern that invariably leads to chaos, misery, pain and even complete (self-)destruction. According to Confucius, “seek revenge and you should dig two graves, one for yourself.”
Thus, to me, the film’s message is: Don’t get hung up on the past (and yes, that is often easier said than done). Learn from the past and get on with your life. Otherwise, your past will seep into your present and destroy your future.
The way I look at life is that it’s never fair, but we all get our hands dirty in this “Game of Life”, as we not only suffer wrongs, but also inflict them on others. No one, absolutely no one, has clean hands. That’s how life works: you break and you get broken. A line from a famous Monty Python song springs to mind: “Life’s a piece of shit when you think of it”.
No, it’s not really all that bad. Life is, indeed, precarious, as I noted here, but it’s also precious. We shouldn’t make life even more precarious by hunting down ghosts from the past (real or perceived) or seeking revenge. And while seeking justice for past wrongs (slavery, the treatment of First Nations in Canada, people falsely convicted of crimes, etc.) is certainly a noble thing (and the right thing) to do, those efforts, too, only too often lose focus: tearing down ancient statues, for example, doesn’t change the past; only a change in attitude as we move forward will make for a better tomorrow.