Today’s writing lesson

…cour­tesy of an io9 arti­cle about Hell­rais­er.

[…] I think what the mon­sters in movies have to say for them­selves is every bit as inter­est­ing as what the human beings have to say. That’s why in stalk and slash films I feel that half the sto­ry is miss­ing. These crea­tures sim­ply become, in a very bor­ing way, abstrac­tions of evil. Evil is nev­er abstract. It is always con­crete, always par­tic­u­lar and always vest­ed in indi­vid­u­als. To deny the crea­tures as indi­vid­u­als the right to speak, to actu­al­ly state their case, is perverse—because I want to hear the Dev­il speak. I think that’s a British atti­tude. I like the idea that a point of view can be made by the dark side.
—Clive Barker
(empha­sis mine) 

I think it’s a Cana­di­an atti­tude, too. Or maybe I lean more to the British than the Amer­i­can point of view on such matters.

I’m not par­tic­u­lar­ly fond of hor­ror films, and so I’ve nev­er actu­al­ly seen Hell­rais­er. Now I sort of want to.