Blurry

I haven't written about it here, but I have this aesthetic stance about low-budget horror movies, namely that the lower-budget it looks, the more effective it can be. I don't necessarily mean bad production values per se -- like the monster in the rubber suit with the zipper evident on it or something -- but rather in the shooting of the film.

If it's shot too well, or the production is too clean, it loses something, at least in my view. The best horror movies should look like they're shot by amateurs, because it adds a layer of authenticity to it. Aside from the cavernous nostrils of Heather Donahue in Blair Witch Project, what made that one work as a horror movie was the willful amateur feel of it. In fact, their choice of film had a definite impact on the viewer, like the shakiness of the camera and the film speed. Though I think a lot of that movie was chalked up to hype, I can't fault their overall approach to the filming of it.

The original Night of the Living Dead and Texas Chainsaw Massacre also had that feel, a sense that you were watching something that was actually happening. The very sloppiness of it makes for better horror, in my view. Too polished, and it's just like any other movie.

I'd been reminded of this recently when I'd looked at a picture of one of the outer planets. Maybe Saturn or Uranus -- one of the planets with rings. Anyway, it was a fuzzy picture, looked to be shot with some kind of x-ray or chromatic kind of lens. It was a far cry from the pretty artist renderings of the planets, or the beautiful, crystal-clear Hubble Telescope shots we've enjoyed over the years.

Looking at this picture, I was struck with horror by it, oddly enough. Reading about the planet's deadly climate (insanely cold, deep oceans of liquid methane, horrible winds, endless storms) -- a place that would kill a person in moments, and seeing that fuzzy picture of that planet, I was stricken by the monstrous reality of the thing. That planet is out there. Not an artist's conception, but for real. When you realize how inhospitable space is, it makes what life we have here all the more precious. All of our eggs are in this tiny basket. Confronted with the horror that is space, the endless otherness of it, it makes home seem infinitely precious, worth saving.

I've got to go to work right now, but I'll be back later, maybe with a fuzzy picture of one of the planets.