(A re-run from five years ago, but a message we could all stand to hear every so often.)
If you ask a horror fan how many times they’ve seen their favorite movie, the answer might rattle you. (A quick Fango poll on social media shows that 1 in 5 horror fans have watched their fave over 50 times, with one fan claiming to have seen Jaws over 1500 times.) Ever since VCRs, horror fans have absolutely burned themselves out on their faves like it was their job, putting them on as one might play a record – a familiar sequence of stimuli to keep you company, to the point where the power of the original work is, if not lost, considerably shifted.
This is not a scold post; there are about ten titles on my shelf that I have used and abused, works of art that I’ve robbed of their spellcasting power through oversaturation. In 2019 I traveled to Winnipeg to write about that city’s generation of hardcore, lifelong Phantom of the Paradise fans, a Galapagos Island-level fandom offshoot that has never existed before or since. I watched my interview subjects enthusiastically attend three screenings of the film in a 36-hour period. As Phantom is one of those ten titles I mentioned above, there was no judgment. I’ve been there and I get it.
I’ve seen Phantom and Dawn of the Dead so many times that I know them by heart – every word, music cue and Foley sound. But it’s rare that further viewings enhance my appreciation for these masterpieces, and I find myself wishing I could undo the familiarity in exchange for the revelatory hit of a new viewing. I’m not alone in this; Film Twitter is awash in social media replies saying “I’m jealous you get to see _______ for the first time!” (Someone could make a killing with an Eternal Chain Saw of the Spotless Mind-type invention.) I have to wonder: at the end of the day, are the endless rewatches adding or taking away?
If you’re 30, this is likely not a question you have to ask yourself. You’ve got all the time in the world to broaden your cinematic horizons, and certainly in 2020 no one would question anyone’s desire to find their comfort wherever they can. But 2020 also gave some of us a wake-up call about the finite nature of our time on earth. As movie fans we’re apt to spend more time thinking about what it is we want to do with the time that’s left to us, and to wonder whether the answer really is “watch Halloween 5 again.” As you get older, you find yourself thinking about the value of revisiting a film you can recite from memory versus experiencing a new film and feeling that initial rush, that high, the thing that made you love movies in the first place. Maybe this is a temporary feeling, and in even more advanced years we’ll be more comfortable with reliving the greatest hits, as those films will become treasured memories, snapshots of the things we loved, and we’ll be content with the idea of the world moving past us. But in middle age, there’s a surprisingly bittersweet chapter of not wanting to miss what’s yet out there.
And there’s something to be said for honoring your favorites through moderation, as opposed to strip-mining them of all their power. Did I upgrade to the newest transfer of Dawn of the Dead when it was finally released on 4K? Immediately. Did I jam it into the player and watch it three times that week? Or even once? No I did not. Dawn is one of my all-time favorite films, and at this point in my relationship with the film is a desire to restore the experience, to make it special again.
Will I be able to? I’ll let you know in a couple years.
