Monster movies and bugs

Hi neighbors. It won't be long before we can take our coffee out on the porch in the morning -- well, at least in the middle of the afternoon.

Have you seen the robins hopping around? Crocus are popping up, and it soon will be the delightful month of April. April is a good month because spring is well established and the tornado season has not quite started.

One bad thing about spring is bugs. I have never been one of those people who admire bugs. I've never collected butterflies or beetles. As a child, there was no need for an ant farm as far as I was concerned.

When my son was crawling around under the house a couple of months ago, he commented there were lots of crickets there. I thought it strange that they could live under a house all winter. Then I wondered what they were eating.

The best case scenario would be they were eating any thing that might look like a termite. Do crickets do that? The worst case scenario would be they were eating my house.

Horrible visions of my house being consumed one tiny mouthful at a time keep crossing my mind. Now that's real horror, unlike some of the fright movies out these days.

This week I watched the movie "Constantine" with a former batman and the librarian lady from the two mummy movies. It had some really good special effects. Angels with big wings that actually shed feathers when they took off to fly. And there were demons who were all bones sticking out of gooey-green flesh. Lots of flies.

There was even a recurring role for a bigger, man-made demon that strikes fear into a lot of people. That demon was lung cancer caused by smoking.

In my opinion the overall theme of this movie seemed to be that demons and angels are both open to negotiations about one's tenure in heaven or hell. Rather like some creature Daniel Webster might start an argument with.

It seems this type of movie comes out regularly. A few are set in the present, some are set in the far future, many in the near future and all often have many scenes from the past.

The only difference between these scary movies and those featuring alien invaders are the references to various religious beliefs and icons.

Horror movies are often defined as "horror" because the protagonist is considered "evil." Often the overall theme of these movies is the battle between some concept of God or goodness in general opposing some power of "not good." The fate of a group of humans, and often the entire human race, is hanging in the balance.

A single hero, or male and female team, become involved in the fight and face down what is deemed evil and through this struggle develop a new closeness and understanding with the forces for good or God depicted in the movie.

Then there are the old standard monster movies. I confess I like a good monster! Unlike battles with forces beyond human control, monsters are there to test human physical mettle. Monsters are more often than not, created by human indifference to or ignorance of the laws of nature on our own planet.

The interest in UFOs got us all hooked on outer space monsters. These are different than our homegrown monsters because they obey laws of nature we've never heard of. Heroes of these movies have to rely on quick wits as well as physical fitness.

Of course we can't forget the ghosts and goblins movies. These horror movies are some of the goriest and often have teenagers as heroes. They are always paired up and get killed throughout the movie when they become too enamored of each other and forget the monster who has just chopped up several of their friends.

Recently the typical ghost movie has become more mystery than horror. I can't complain about that because I enjoy a good mystery.

All of the above have merged certain elements to create the "thriller" type of movie. These movies are alright, but can get pretty complicated. The good guys and bad guys are all human and often the only scary part is waiting for the hero to decide what he's going to do about his situation.

I've seen a lot of scary movies featuring monsters, demons, plagues, creatures from the deep and just weird people. But one of the scariest things I've yet to see, may be the invasion of crickets under my house! Until the next time friends remember, there is always something "out there" in the shadows.