The Mind Screw

Okay, I must admit to something.  I do like movies, books, and anything else that gives one a mind screw.  In my experience, wrapping my mind around whatever a film is trying to tell me in the most nonsensical way possible is quite fun.  You can see this in my list of favorite films.  While liking such treasures as The 10th Kingdom,Penelope, The Lord of the Rings Trilogy, the original Star Wars and Disney Movies, I also greatly enjoy movies like Memento,  The Descent, The Fountain and anime in general.

First, we'll need to give you, the reader, a rough explanation of what a mind screw is.

In general terms a mind screw is a movie, book, or other story-telling medium where the story doesn't just go out to let you escape from reality in some way or another, but also bend your brain to nearly the breaking point and possibly bend it right back to reality.

For example, if you ever read House of Leaves, you've read one giant, 662 page mind screw that even screws with the way you see the text just to mess with you.  Then again, any book that claims to be nonfictional, has a character going along telling you about the events of his life and then turns around and has him tell you he's lying and LAUGHS as you for believing him isn't even trying to keep you sane.  It's just mocking you with how much it wants to scramble your brains.

Another example would be Memento, a movie in which all of the events are moving backwards in chronological order.  So, you begin with the last scene of the story and move forward to the scene that sets a majority of the events off... which would be the first scene in a normal movie as well.

There are a number of directors that are very  good at the mind screw (Terry Gilliam and Darren Aronofsky) and there are pretenders out there who think they are skilled at the mind screw, but are really just pulling the same hat-trick over and over and over again (M. Night Shyamalan).  The same goes for writers as well, I imagine but I've only read a few genuine mind screw books in my life.  I have to be in the right mood for them.

My favorite author as a teenager was Christopher Pike who's books can go from very vanilla murder mystery (Fall Into Darkness and the Final Friends series) to a little weird (the Remember Me series, The Midnight Club, See You Later) and straight to the stuff that goes beyond crazy land and you're lucky if you come back (the Last Vampire series, Whisper of Death, The Lost Mind...).  It always made picking up one of his books fun because I didn't know if it'd be something cool or something... that would make me foam at the mouth.

A TV show that does good with creating mind screw situations is Doctor Who, the BBC series that makes most American series weep because they'll never be as good.  There are episodes that will have you down right paranoid that the shadows are going to eat you, the statues you see everywhere are going to transport you to another time, or mabye you've forgotten something really important becuase the universe ate it.  Yes.  Doctor Who: a TV show that makes you distrust you're own brain and everything you take for granted.  Oh, and that apartment above yours, is it really another apartment or really advanced technology that is killing people?

One episode of Buffy the Vampire Slayer also ended with a mind screw.  How many people remember Season Six's Normal Again (episode seventeen)?  If you don't, skip to the next paragraph.  If you do, what did you think when the very last scene of the episode was in the "hallucinatory" world of Buffy in the mental institution with Joyce crying over her?  How many people wanted that to be the reality and were utterly fascinated by it? Hello!  You're my kind of person!

I don't know why, but when something plays with my perception of reality.  When the objects in the mirror move on their own, when those statues move behind your back, when the house is bigger on the inside than it is on the outside, when the text is sideways and the story is being told from end to beginning... I LOVE IT!!!

It sort of recharges my system... revs me up to read or write or watch just one more dumb movie that will probably disappoint me.

Anime is more fun because... well, some of the lack of sense is due to cultural things.  Though the amount of oozing, tentacle-related.... stuff... disturbs me to no end.  Are octopi really that big of a problem in that country?  Or does Hayao Miyazaki and others who don't produce hentai in any fashion have some sort of mental issue the rest of us aren't aware of?

Either way, I like to be disturbed.  I like when my perception gets so twisted and turned around that I don't know what I'm reading or watching.  I don't live for it, but I get a big kick out of seeing it especially when I don't expect it.  However, when I expect it, but I don't get it... I get upset (I'm looking at you, The Black Swan!!!) and then I get a little angry... and then I get over it and try to find something else I like.  If I can't find that one thing to like instead, I abandon all interest in the thing anymore.  This is why my last Shyamalan movie was Lady in the Water and it will stay that way.

Now, once I get to reviewing things instead of doing little crazed blurbs, some people should suggest mind screw books and movies to the list.  In exchange for suggestions, I'll write MORE.

Sweet dreams!