Against All Odds

Some weeks ago, I watched Dog Soldiers, after doing some self-research on a movie I came to know as The Descent, a horror title that I skipped to watch Memoirs of a Geisha instead, ending up snickering at Chinese actors speaking English and portraying Japanese.

Dog Soldiers, starring Lucius Vorenus and Titus Pullo (no, seriously!) is a great film from a horror point of view, in this day and age where producers would tend to happen upon cheap special effects, buckets of red paint and mindless plots. Where most slashfest movie characters are often told as running scared, Dog Soldiers has a bunch of men running from a certain and inevitable end, frightened, but come to terms with the problem and deal with it. Violently.

So you have a group of army chaps armed to the teeth, holed up in a spot against a pack of evil monsties, yet they cannot seem to take down the enemy as normally expected. However, my point here is not to talk about a movie, but parts within the movie that seem quite inspiring.

The first part of the movie concerns one fellow called Spoon, who has to go one-on-one with the werewolf that walks into the kitchen, and as Wikipedia puts it, the man puts up a stiff upper lip, and goes absolutely fucking nuts. Not in the sense that he goes all scared and shits himself in the pants, but he fights back. Hard. He screams all the way, swings kicks and punches, and flings everything that he can get his hands on at his adversary, and is close to beating the werewolf to death with a frying pan before another werewolf comes in and grabs Spoon by the neck. Just before the fellow is ripped to shreds, he looks the monster in the eye and says, "I hope I give you the shits, you fucking wimp," and literally spits in the face of death.

The second part involves our two favourite legionnaries smashing their way from room to room all across the second floor, breaking through walls, furniture and floors in a desperate attempt for survival. Not as heroic as the first, but still worth a mention as they have to break through their obstacles with the little they have, and still make it out alive. Pullo looks upon the remains of Spoon and mentions a reference to the Matrix that I didn't get until a couple of days back. =P

Now my emphasis is here: these few brave souls are up against all odds, and though only one out of everyone makes it out alive (two actually, but anyways), they put up a good show as compared to what anyone else in most horror shows could possibly muster.

We are told nowadays to run from evil, that when someone comes along and decides to oppress, we should relent and comfort ourselves by saying "Oh, he has his reasons for doing so, so I'll agree that I'm in the wrong," or whatever it is that makes us feel better. We have been trained since an early age to fear those who are higher than us, that we are little children that have no clue into what we're getting into, even when we reach adulthood, to be told again by our so-called leaders to sit up, shut up and be spoon fed.

That's because the prospect of raising ourselves against a culture of greed, evil (not necessarily) and selfishness is seen as taboo, something that has no place in society. I'm not talking about disrespecting one's elders, or rebelling against a lawful, good authority, but when it comes to situations where people just tend to put us down in any way possible, should we not rise up to the occasion, kicking and screaming, and just about throwing everything we can muster, smash every obstacle in our path until we make it out on the other side? Is that not a better option than to sit by, pray and hope that everything will work out right?

From a Christian viewpoint, prayer means nothing without action. You can pray for something to happen all the time, but if you don't pick up yourself to do something about your predicament, nothing will happen. Heard the adage: God helps those who help themselves? Very true indeed, so kicking and screaming does tend to work.


Currently listening to: Nightwish - The Wayfarer