Column...

Here's another column I wrote for the paper.

"Learning from horror classics"
By Brian Krans, Metro East

Say you and three friends go out to the woods for the weekend. Hours later, you've killed them all because after reciting part of an evil book, they all turned into the undead.

Here's the question: Do you go back to the same cabin with a different girlfriend who is also named Linda? Of course not, not because it makes obvious sense, but because you've seen "Evil Dead" and "Evil Dead II."

Oh, the things those fantastically splendid horror films can teach us.

To clarify, I'm not talking about the ones mass-produced with current celebrities seeing the dead or knowing who killed them.

No, I'm talking about horror classics. The movies that make names like Jason, Freddy and Michael even creepier. The greats from the '70s and '80s where fake blood poured like raspberry syrup over a stack 'o' pancakes body count. The ones where the entire score from a movie can come from a synthesizer or an ill-tuned violin. The ones you can rent five-for-five-bucks at Hollywood Video.

Why do we love them? I'm not sure. Maybe it's the fine line between horror and humor. My girlfriend says it gives us another chance to yell at the TV. Maybe so we feel smarter because we obviously wouldn't make such obviously bad mistakes.

Even if you view them simply as entertainment, you'll find the subtle life lessons oozing out like brains out of a re-dead zombie's ears.

George Romero taught us all many valuable lessons in "Night of the Living Dead." My favorite is that sometimes, no matter how bad of an idea it seems, you might want to listen to the raving lunatic when he says the safest spot in a zombie invasion is the basement. Sometimes, those crazies aren't so crazy.

Then again, if the teenage vampire movie "Lost Boys" taught us anything, it's to stick with your gut. Life if you're like Corey Feldman and think the owner of the video store on the boulevard is the head vampire, he could just be. And is.

Another is Stephen King in "Creepshow," the comic-turned-horror classic from 1982. In writing it, he had some sage advice like if your lover's husband wants to bury you neck deep on the beach to save the cheating wife's life, the simplie answer is don't do it. She's probably already dead.

Another lesson from "Creepshow" that Mr. King, in all of his acting might, illustrated that if you find a meteor lands on your farm, don't play with it. You might become a plant and be forced to shoot yourself.

As long as we're talking about Mr. King, let's talk about his short story and the 1984-film adaptation, "Children of the Corn." What possibly could we learn from them? Tons. More specifically, don't let your ego get away from you or the killer cult of kids you're leading will turn on you and sacrifice you to the corn field monster.

Also, be weary of any large group of religiously zealous kids living in a town without parents. Nothing good can come from that.