This year, Alien movie celebrated its 40th anniversary. For this occasion — and the fact that I turned 40 too — I decided to give in and watch it after resisting for almost two decades. My brother — the movie fanatic — had always insisted that both parts (Alien and Aliens) were ranking high on his favourite movies of all time.
I — on the other hand — never knew that the letters ‘S’ at the end is what distinguished the two movies apart. Well, I won’t share my views here knowing that there are many die-hard fans among the readers. Let’s just say that I broke the hearts of both my brother and friend when I told them what I really thought of it.
My brother took my feedback bravely but my friend didn’t. He sent me a message full of crying emojis followed by the longest “No!” that my screen had ever received (not really sure if he got over the shock yet!). Then — as if my negative views about the Alien movies weren’t enough — my brother decided that we should watch a zombie movie called “World War Z” starring Brad Pitt.
The movie had flopped badly six years back and my brother was deeply disappointed as he went to Dubai to watch the premier. Nevertheless, we decided to watch it given the fact that I’m not a fan of zombies (I actually never got past the first season of The Walking Dead. My brother decided to complete it alone — sparing himself from my sarcastic supplementary comments throughout the episodes).
Unlike the rest of zombie movies before, the WWZ zombie chase starts within the first five minutes. The movie doesn’t add anything new, except for a few unrealistically funny scenes like the time they travel to Palestine to find out that the Israeli authorities had opened Jerusalem for both Arabs and Jews to hide (Seriously? That’s all it takes? A zombie attacks?). And while queuing to get through, an Arab woman suddenly grasps the mic to sing about peace (not in Arabic but in Hebrew!). Everyone seems to know the lyrics and joins in. The loud voice attracts the zombies who breaks in and infect everyone in the city (Brad escapes and watches the scene sorrowfully from an ascending plane).
The second funny scene was when Brad decides to inject himself with a lethal virus to become invisible to the zombies. While heading back to the lab — where a group of desperate scientists are waiting for him to save humankind — he poses for a good long minute in front of a vending machine that has an unmistakably huge Pepsi sign on it. But when he presses the button, an unidentified purple can comes out.
Nevertheless, he opens it and takes a long sip (a well-deserved break after all the running done. The fate of humankind could wait!). My brain kept phasing in and out while watching the movie, trying to analyse the difference of horror definition in both Eastern and Western cultures.
The Western’s definition of horror always included creatures of blood and gore (vampires and zombies) while the Eastern one always dealt with the invisible. For example, the Gulf citizens believed in two water spirits called Darya (male) and Marjana (female) who were responsible for all the drowning incidents that happened in the sea. Another spirit is Um El Sa’af wil Leef — the old female spirit who lived on palm trees-that scared children. At any rate, Eastern spirits were always warded off by certain verses of the Quran. And Western horror creatures? By a deadly virus of course! Just ask Brad!
Rasha al Raisi is a certified skills trainer and the author of: The World According to Bahja. rashabooks@yahoo.com
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