Category Archives: Film

Food Matters – A Review

Ok, so I told myself that I wouldn’t get into movie reviews in my blog, but I saw this outstandingly important documentary/movie called Food Matters, and it is a documentary that everyone needs to see! I definitely wouldn’t call this a horror movie, but it is horrible what we seem to be doing to ourselves and the food that we put into our bodies(most of us). This documentary goes into what we are doing wrong as a people, what some of us are doing right, and the effect of our actions.

“Let Thy Food Be Thy Medicine, And Thy Medicine Be Thy Food.” a statement made by Hippocrates, the father of modern medicine. What Hippocrates seemed to mean was eat nutritionally sound foods and your body will take care of itself, and that is the whole point of this film, when properly maintained by providing it with the proper fuel the human body will run without fault and combat most disease. Now this film makes no illusion that when catastrophic disaster strikes the body that medication is not required, all of the professional physicians and nutritionists and naturopaths admit that is necessary for medicinal intervention.

This film presents commentary from a wide variety of professional physicians, nutritionists, naturopaths, professors, authors, and other authorities; Ian Brighthope, Jerome Burne, Charlotte Gerson, Dan Rodgers, Andrew W. Saul, David Wolfe, Victor Zeines.

This is a film about your body and what you put in it, it’s about how we are destroying the soil and what grows out of it, it’s about how all of the has affected you and is affecting you, and what we all can do about it. This is not something that you want to miss!

Food Matters. (2008). Retrieved from Netflix: http://movies.netflix.com/WiMovie/Food_Matters/70123196?trkid=2361637

Anonymous. (2008). Food Matters. Retrieved from IMDB: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1528734/

Colquhoun, J., & Ledesma, C. (Directors). (2008). Food Matters [Motion Picture].

Delvey, J. (n.d.). Hippocrates. Retrieved from http://www.sjsu.edu/depts/Museum/hippoc.html

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Filed under Film, Health, Movie Review, Movies, Nature, Philosophy, Science

Examination of Fear

Why do many of us love Horror Movies? They give us the opportunity to experience our fears in a safe, secure environment. Many of our ‘phobias’ are the storylines for some of our favorite(and not so favorite)horror films.

Isolophobia(Fear of Being Alone) –
The Fear involved in the Haunted House Scenario, such as Alien(the classic Haunted House in Space)or the classic story of The House on Haunted Hill is derived from the fact that we are communal animals, we fear being seperated from those of our own kind, being out of contact with our local support system. Several other phobias related to Isolophobia include, Taphephobia(Being Buried AliveBuried Alive), Agoraphobia(Open SpacesWolf Creek), Spacephobia(Outer Space), Claustrophobia(Confined Spaces).

Hydrophobia & Ichthyophobia(Fear of Water & Fear of Fish) –
Probably the most ‘influential’ horror movies involving the fear of water and fish continue to be Steven Spielberg’s blockbuster smash Jaws and the always frightening(on soooo many levels)Open Water(Open Water falls into multiply catagories here, but the most obvious is Fear of Water & Fear of Fish). But where does this fear come from? Our fear of water comes due to a number of reasons; it’s awesome power(it is one of the few unstoppable forces on earth), and it’s lethality(On average, 4,000 people in the USA die from drowning each year…225,000 people were lost during the 2004 Sumatra Tsumami …approximately 90% of all hurricane deaths can be attributed to the storm surge, the dome of water created by the low pressure center of a hurricane).

The Fear of Fish often comes from our fear of what is strange or obscure(fish come in all shapes, sizes and varieties…from the Octopus, to the Trout, to the Sea Cucumber). When it comes to movies such as Jaws or Open Water(or Orca), we fear the size, strength and physical lethality of the many predators that inhabit our oceans(Sharks and Killer Whales), and the unpredictability that comes along with their        primitive animal nature.

Necrophobia(Fear of Death or Dead Things) –
This is quite possibly the most easily understood fear out of all of those listed here. Death and Dead Things(Zombies, Mummys, Spectres…)remind us of our own mortality, our eventual deaths. One of the most disturbing forms of death in horror movies involves the inherent Fear of Devouring(Phagophobia)which is most prevalently featured in the George Romero Zombie Horror movies Night of the Living Dead, Dawn of the Dead, Day of the Dead, Land of the Dead, and Diary of the Dead. This fear of being consumed harkens back to our primitive pre-history, during which time our ‘fear-response’ protected us from predators hunting us for sustenance.

Dysmorphophobia(Fear of Deformity) –
The Fear of Deformity is a very natural fear that we all possess to one degree or another, once again we fear things that are strange or different, but in this case we fear that such deformity could be inflicted on ourselves. Be it Freddy Krueger’s horribly burned face(Nightmare on Elm Street), the various facial deformities of Jason Voorhees(Friday the 13th part 2), or the various mutilations feature during the Hellraiser series of films…we all fear for our own appearance when confronted with deformity.

Demonophobia or Daemonophobia(Fear of Demons) –
As human beings we have an inordinate fear(and for some a facination with)of the supernatural, specifically; demons, devils, witches and other occult practices such as black magic(depending on one’s theological beliefs). Demons have specifically invoked fear in horror movies through their use of dominating abilities, such as; Possession & Mutilation(The Exorcist), Controlling their surrounding environment to envoke happenings(The Omen & The Omen II), Inhabitation and Domination of a physical location(The Amityville Horror)…or in the case of the movie Paranormal Activity, all three! Once again, we fear what we cannot control and what we cannot comprehend.

Molysmophobia or Molysomophobia(Fear of Contamination or Infection) –
This is an interesting fear, because instead of fearing an external force that we cannot control(once again, we fear what we cannot control or comprehend), Contaminations and Infections are INTERNAL forces that exist within our bodies that we are unable to control(or even see for that matter)or escape from. During the horror movie Quarantine, Jennifer Carpenter‘s character’s fear originated from her inability to combat the infection that was(supposedly)within her.

Xenophobia(Fear of Strangers) –
The fear of strangers is one of our most basic instinctual reactions…we fear what we do not know! We fear for our personal safety and the safety of our loved ones, we also fear for our personal possessions, and that fear often does not subside untill we gain some ‘personal knowledge’ or ‘influence’ over the Strangers that we are encountered with. During the movie The Strangers terror escalates because we are never quite sure of the intent of the ‘family’ that persistently ‘terrorized’ stars Liv Tyler and Scott Speedman.

Spectrophobia(Fear of Ghosts) –
The Fear of Ghosts(or Spectres, Shades, Apparitions)is an ancient fear that involves a number of aspects from our list here. Fear of the Supernatural, once again we fear what we are unable to control(The Shining), Fear of Strangers(Xenophobia)- We often know nothing about these spirits, where they really come from or how many there truely are(Poltergeist), Fear of Dead Things(Necrophobia)- Ghosts and Spirits are once again often a reminder of the afterlife and our own mortality(The Others, The Sixth Sense). We all live in a ‘tangible’ world and we are used to dealing with material objects and individuals, spirits and spectres in the horror movies exist on a level beyond our control and comprehension…creating fear and apprehension.

Zoophobia(Fear of Animals) –
A fear of animals often arises from a fear of their primitive nature and a lack of understanding of their inherent psychologies, animals don’t adhere to our conventional civilized morality, and animals are capable of defending themselves with far greater skill than any of us could ever hope for. A great many animals are capable of inflicting lethal force on us as people; Bears(Grizzly), Lions & Tigers(Prey) Bees(Swarm). And in the case of Apes(Planet of the Apes), they can be disturbing because they are so similiar to who we are, and they remind us of what we once were. Further subcatagories of Zoophobia include; Agrizoophobia(Fear of Wild Animals), Myrmecophobia(Fear of Ants), Arachnophobia(Fear of Spiders), Chiroptophobia(Fear of Bats), Apiphobia or Melissophobia(Fear of Bees), Ornithophobia(Fear of Birds), Gatophobia(Fear of Cats), Cynophobia(Fear of Dogs) Alektorophobia(Fear of Chickens)….

Dementophobia or Maniaphobia(Fear of Insanity or The Insane) –
Insanity is an integral part of most mainstream(and not so mainstream)horror movies, be it the psychotic Freddy Krueger from Wes Craven’s Nightmare on Elm Street, the murderous serial killer Michael Myers from John Carpenter’s classic Halloween, or the disturbed Jason Voorhees from Steve Miner’s Friday the 13th part 2(and the ensuing series of movies), we fear the insane due to there unpredictability and the lack of control that they represent. Often the insane do not share our common morality and that frightens us. True life examples of what the ‘insane’ are capable of include; Ed Gein(inspired The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, Norman Bates from the classic movie Psycho & Buffalo Bill(Jame Gumb) of The Silence of the Lambs), Ted Bundy, John List(inspired The Stepfather)

Looking into further Fears and Phobias? Check The Indexed Phobia List.

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Filed under Entertainment, Film, Horror, Movies, Perception, Psychology