Can you believe it? The first day of Horrorthon is nearly over! I’ve got tears in my mismatched eyes.
You may remember, from previous horrorthons, that I like to end each day in October by sharing a classic example of televised horror. Much as with the the horror movies that I share at the start of each day, it should be remembered that I’m a bit at the whim of YouTube here. If YouTube decides to yank down a video after I share it on this site, there’s nothing that I can do about it. That’s why I encourage everyone to watch these now! Don’t wait until 2024. Who knows if YouTube will even still be a thing in 2024?
Anyway, let’s start things off with The Curse of Degrassi!
This is a special episode of my favorite TV show of all, Degrassi! Originally airing on October 28th, 2008, The Curse of Degrassi features Degrassi’s main mean girl, Holy J Sinclair (Charlotte Arnold), getting possessed by the vengeful spirit of deceased school shooter, Rick Murray (Ephraim Ellis). Chaos follows! Fortunately, Spinner (Shane Kippel) is around to save the day. As any true Degrassi fan can tell you, only Spinner has a chance against the forces of the undead.
(Before anyone asks, yes, I did share this same episode last October. What can I say? I really like Degrassi and forcing people to watch my favorite Canadian obsession is a bit of a tradition around here. We’re all about tradition here at the Shattered Lens.)
Well, can you believe it? Halloween is nearly over! In just four more hours, it will be midnight on the West Coast and October will officially be ended and so will our annual horrorthon. Thank you to everyone who contributed and read and commented this year! Y’all make all the hard work more than worth it!
Well, here’s our final excursion into the world of televised horror. Ready for it? I’m getting a little teary-eyed.
This is a special episode of my favorite TV show of all, Degrassi! Originally aired on October 28th, 2008, The Curse of Degrassi features Degrassi’s main mean girl, Holy J Sinclair (Charlotte Arnold), getting possessed by the vengeful spirit of deceased school shooter, Rick Murray (Ephraim Ellis). Chaos follows!
As we continue with this series of Back to School reviews (only 11 left to go!), we now go from Degrassi to something much, much darker. A horror thriller from 2010, The Final takes a look at what happens when a bunch of teenage outcasts decide to get revenge on the students who have spent the past few years tormenting them.
And let’s just say that revenge is not pretty.
One day, a bunch of affluent high school students all receive an invitation to a costume party that will be held at an isolated and long-deserted mansion. These students are your typical collection of jocks and cheerleaders. They’re popular but they’re not exactly smart, which may explain why they all show up for the party and drink from a punch bowl that’s been laced with a drug. Everyone falls unconscious and, when they wake up, they discover that they have all been chained together.
Among the prisoners is one uninvited guest. Kurtis (Jascha Washington) is one of the popular kids but he wasn’t invited to the party. Why? Well, as we see at the beginning of the film, Kurtis is literally the only nice guy at the entire school. He’s the only popular kid who is willing to treat the school’s “outcasts” with kindness.
And, as you’ve probably guessed already, the outcasts are the ones who set up the party. As they announce to their prisoners, they are going to spend the rest of the night torturing them. They’re not planning on killing anyone. Instead, they just want to ruin everyone’s perfect future. They didn’t want to torture Kurtis but then he decided to come to the party.
Seriously, what can you do?
The rest of the film is basically a combination of nonstop torture and talk. The prisoners spend a lot of time begging and screaming. Significantly, they don’t do much apologizing. In fact, a few of them continue to try to act like bullies even though they’re in chains. As for the outcasts, their leader proves to be surprisingly talkative. In fact, there were a few times when I really wanted him to shut up. Why are movie torturers always so verbose?
That said, it quickly becomes obvious that some of the outcasts are more enthusiastic than others. And their leader, Dane, is quickly revealed to be so crazy that he’s just as willing to kill his friends as he is to torture his bullies. Dane is played by an actor named Marc Donato. Interestingly enough, before making The Final, Donato was best known for playing a bully on Degrassi. And before getting his role on Degrassi, Donato had a tiny but important role as a bullied child in a terrible film called Pay It Forward. So, when it comes cinematic bullying, Donato has seen every possible angle.
The Final is really an unpleasant film, though I imagine it was meant to make the audience uncomfortable. I love horror films but I tend to get bored pretty quickly with films where the majority of the running time is taken up with people being tortured. There’s only so many times you can listen to someone scream in pain before you tune out. That said, The Final is also a well-made and atmospherically creepy film and all the popular kids are so unlikable that you really don’t mind seeing them lose limbs and get disfigured. Considering that we’re still hearing daily stories about children being bullied to the point of suicide, maybe The Final should be required viewing in certain classrooms.
Listen, I’m not going to say too much about the 2000 film Pay It Forward because it’s such a terrible movie that I feel like writing too much about it would be like the equivalent of having sex in It Follows. Seriously, you talk too much about Pay It Forward and you’ll end up with some sort of shape-shifting demon following you around, doing you favors and demanding that you do three more favors for three other people and then those people have to do three more favors and pretty soon, everyone in the world is doing favors for everyone and…
AGCK!
Okay, okay — I know that probably doesn’t sound too bad to some people. “People being nice to each other!? What could be wrong about that?” Well, watch the damn film and find out.
In Pay it Forward, Haley Joel Osment plays a creepy little kid who basically “saves” the world. At the end of the film, he’s violently murdered and the entire population of Las Vegas gathers outside of his house with candles. His mother Helen Hunt is truly touched that everyone was so moved by Haley’s mission. That said, if Haley had never decided that everyone should pay it forward, he probably wouldn’t be dead. I mean, let’s just be honest here.
Before he died, Haley was challenged by his social studies teacher, Kevin Spacey. Mr. Spacey challenged an entire class of 7th graders to come up with an idea that will change the world. (Honestly, don’t 7th graders already have enough to deal with?) Haley’s idea is that he’ll do a favor for three random people and then those three people will do three nice things for three people and then…
BLEH! God, I hate this movie!
Anyway, Haley gives money to a homeless man and then that homeless man keeps a woman from committing suicide and then that woman does something nice for Angie Dickinson and then somehow, this all eventually leads to some rich guy giving Jay Mohr a car and telling him to “pay it foward.”
And Jay’s a reporter!
So, naturally, he starts to work his way backwards on the chain of good deeds. Along the way, he meets a prison inmate who has been converted to Pay It Forwardism. “This is going to change the world!” he tells Jay. “I’m even getting the brothers in here in on it!”
By the way, there’s exactly one person of color in Pay It Forward and he’s a prison inmate who thinks that other inmates will want to do random favors for each other.
Oh, but Haley has to do two other favors! So, he sets Helen Hunt up with Kevin Spacey and when he catches his teacher coming out his mom’s bedroom, Haley gets really, really excited and … well, it’s pretty creepy.
At first, Helen thinks that Kevin thinks that she’s not smart enough to date him. When Helen asks him point blank if he thinks that she’s dumb, he responds by giving a really long monologue about the time that his father set him on fire. Kevin does not mention what his father was attempting to pay forward…
And then Jay shows up in town and interviews Haley and oh my God, Haley’s going to change the world! Yay! But then Haley spends his third favor trying to protect a kid (played by Degrassi‘s Marc Donato) from some bullies and ends up getting stabbed to death.
But fear not! Along with that candlelight vigil, we also hear an anchorwoman breathlessly reporting that there have been reports of “Pay it Forwardism” across the country.
Now, there’s a lot of negative things that I could say about Pay It Forward but … well, I kinda already did. Pay It Forward pops up on TV a lot and there’s a lot of idiots who always get excited about it.
OMG, can't believe there are people on twitter talking about how much they love Pay It Forward. It actually makes me angry.
— Lisa Marie Bowman (@LisaMarieBowman) May 30, 2015
Here’s my fear concerning the whole Pay It Forward idea. It seems like anybody can just do anything and then go, “Pay it forward,” and suddenly, you are obligated to go do three favors. You may be running late. You may have other things you need to do. But no, you’ve been told to pay it forward and now, you have to! Because of one creepy little kid who wanted his social studies teacher to have sex with his mom, you have now been inconvenienced.
There doesn’t seem to be any rule about how big of a favor anyone actually has to do before they can smugly order you to “Pay it forward.” Think about this. You’re trying to get a Coke from a vending machine but all of your dollars are all crumbled up and the machine won’t accept them. You’re about to give up and go home when suddenly, a stranger walks up and deposits three quarters in the machine and punches a button.
He tosses you a grape drink. You wanted a Coke but, because you’re nice and you think he was selflessly trying to help you out, you smile and say, “Thank you.”
“Pay it forward,” he replies before walking away.
Well, now, you’re screwed, aren’t you?
Now, suddenly, you have to go find three people who need a favor. You didn’t want grape. You wanted a Coke and, even if you had never gotten that Coke, it would not have been the end of the world. But, because you were polite and said thank you, you are now obligated.
As you look for people to help, it occurs to you that stranger really didn’t care about whether you wanted a Coke. What he cared about was completing his third favor so he could actually get on with his life. So, no, he wasn’t trying to help you or trying to make the world a better place. Instead, he was just trying to free himself of a nagging obligation.
So, after a long search, you’ve finally found your three strangers and you’ve done your three favors and you’re finally free of your obligation. And then suddenly, another stranger runs up and tosses you the keys to one of those stupid looking Smart cars and yells, “Pay it forward!”
SERIOUSLY, IT NEVER ENDS!
Don’t tell me about paying it forward.
Just leave me alone and let me drink my damn Coke.
Through the Shattered Lens 