“My eight-year-old cousin shockingly believes that coloured people are criminals, candy men and sinners. Courtesy of our testosterone-filled movies, my cousin who has no form of interaction with the African Americans except for our promising cinema, is on his righteous path towards becoming a much-desired racist. Insane, right?” Remarked a distressed amateur liberal as she walked out of the theatre; never mind if she sang ‘Beyoncé sharma jayegi’ all day though. 

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With the dramatic decline in the glorification of dicriminatory movies, liberals all around the world are protesting against the movie makers for not creating enough films that are prejudiced. While some of the movies do portray racially disadvantaged people as uncivilised and old school barbarians (globally adored movies like Birth of a Nation), a hefty thirteen percent of non-racial movies surely contribute to the agony of the protesters. 

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If only everyone appreciated the divine powers of legends like James Bond and Bahubali, we all could recover from deathly head concussions while killing the villain by just an obnoxious monologue. Sadly, some of us would rather be into gore and bloodbath than see men brain busting us in dapper three-piece suits. But the way our national elections present the voters with an overbearing option of two competing parties, fortunately for the horror lovers, movies too offer an impressive variety of two sub genres – cult classics and our beloved schizophrenics.

 

Afraid that the maniac next door might go full on slasher on you? Paranoid that the school counsellor might hoax you into seeing the friendly psychiatrist only to lobotomize you? Feel sympathy for the pathetic lab rats and their exploited brains? Felicitations, you are watching just the right series on Netflix; phew!

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A streaming enthusiast expresses his gratitude for the illuminating movies and other features, “I finally understand the importance of strapping the freaks to a gurney, the rabble-rousing patients in the psychiatric ward deserve no better. Next come the electrodes on both sides of their head; the patient must be fully conscious, that’s the key to it. And voila, the ideal punishment for a rebellious and sadistic sufferer as several orderlies hold him down while he thrashes uncontrollably and lapses into a stupor. Indisputably one of the most gratifying scenes to watch.” The viewer later revealed that his analysis was based on seven educational psychological thrillers, might even applaud them to be scarier than Bloody Mary.

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Like him, several civilians now proudly hold degrees in psychiatry, know the ultimate cure for dissociative identity disorder, mania, and schizophrenia. They are known to have a conference with leading psychologists and neuropsychiatrists for revising the doctrines of science and psychology; the new source for research and information would reportedly be shifted to Shutter Island and Psycho (1960).

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Worried about her husband’s condition, a troubled wife watches Room Number 706 in hopes of understanding why he no more pays attention to her, “My husband is deeply depressed, but I don’t want him to see the evil temptress.” The panicky lady told us after enduring two hours of the masterpiece. Apparently, the movie had a terrific plot of a wicked psychiatrist seducing her suicidal patient. Anguished by the eventual rejection by the married shrink, the patient commits suicide and his phantom then returns to take his lover to the underworld. On later collaboration with the couple, we came to know that the depressed husband did indeed start seeking a therapist, wanting to know why his wife was becoming paranoid and delusional. Fortunately, not all movies are known to have severed marital bonds; some have even cemented them. After seemingly watching Bhool Bhulaiyaa together, newlyweds were so terrified of having PTSD, that they vowed never to die in front of each other; gods forbid if the groom ended up becoming Manjulika.

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Alas, not everyone is terror-stricken when movies help in perpetuating stigmatisation of socially prejudiced issues. We need to have blood and carnage in order to draw horror; it is absolutely not enough when mental illness is shamelessly ridiculed, villainised and portrayed in a way that elicits dread and bias from the people.

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Long since suspecting their vile neighbours, a conventionally orthodox family decided to settle the dust once and for all. After discreetly sneaking into the kitchen of their unsuspecting neighbours, their worst fears came true. The evil pagans could be seen worshiping their ghastly deities, runestones and incense scattering the floor and all hell broke loose when they started chanting mystique incantations; a clear sign of their association with Saturn. “Damn the heathens, next time we’ll certainly find out where they hide their skulls and sacrificial lambs!” The head of the family panted as he struggled to move out of the kitchen window. Not knowing what else to do, the family resorted to seek help from epics such as The Wicker Man and Midsommar. Later the irritated and confused neighbours filed a complaint for disappearing crockery and broken fences.

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In the wake of so many edifying case-studies, one can infer that what rots faster than the image of a struggling celebrity, is a society where the mockery and propagandisation of human suffering is glorified (note for movie makers: horror is not born from an illness or misunderstood religious practices; it is born when fake reporters are bailed and real reporters are convicted for being fake).