Page 70 of The End of the World As We Know It
“And he doesn’t actually get his mask until this one,” said Alan.
“Part Three?” asked Bill.
“Yeah,” said Alan.
“So why does everyone call him the hockey mask guy?” asked Bill.
“They call him Jason,” said Derek.
“But he’s the hockey mask guy,” said Bill.
“Yeah,” the boys answered.
“And he’s dead,” said Bill.
“Not yet,” said Alan. “He dies in Part Four. Then he’s resurrected in Part Six.”
“Shit,” said Derek. “We’re gonna have to explain Part Five, aren’t we?”
“I think it’s just best if we show him,” said Alan.
“We should have just started with the first one.”
“Yeah, but Jason isn’t really in that one and we wanted to show him the best of the baddies.”
“I still contend no list of slashers is complete without Pinhead,” said Derek.
“And I still contend thatthatis a conversation for another time,” said Alan.
The three sat in silence, watching the triptych of horror classics, Bill’s eyes glued to the screen as body after body dropped in gruesome fashion. Not all the kills were bloody, but each one was brutal, in some cases much more brutal than the last. As the night wore on and the number of beers in the fridge grew thin, Bill looked more and more perplexed. And once the movies had run their course, Alan and Derek stood up to bid Bill adieu, only to find Bill still in his seat, watching the credits roll.
“I don’t get it,” said Bill.
“Get what?” asked Alan.
“Why do you like these guys?” asked Bill. “Like, I get why you guys like horror movies. I’m really liking a lot of them as well. Buttheseguys. Freddy, Jason, Leatherface. Why them? They’re not the good guys.”
Derek nodded, smiling. “No, that’s what’s cool about them.”
“That they’re the bad guys,” said Bill.
“Yeah,” said Derek, as if that was self-evident.
Bill just stared at the rolling credits, puzzled. Then Alan put on the stone-faced demeanor of a college professor.
“There are two types of horror,” he said. “I mean, there are a lot of subgenres—the slasher, the thriller, the alien invasion, body horror, creature feature, the monster within… it’s an endless array.”
Both Bill and Derek stared at Alan, wondering who the fuck just possessed Alan’s body and began working him like a ventriloquist’s dummy.
Alan continued. “But when you talk about the basics, the fundamentals of what makes horrorhorror, there are just two types. Scaryhorror, in which we feel terror through empathy, and catharsis, in which we watch people who really deserve it get their just desserts.”
“The hell are you talking about?” asked Bill.
“Yeah,” asked Derek. “The fuck did this all come from?”
“They write books about this stuff. I got curious, so I’ve bought some when I visited Austin last time.”
“You read this in a book?” asked Bill.
