Headline, August 09 2024/ ESSAY : ''' A -SMARTPHONE- A '''

 

ESSAY : 

''' A -SMARTPHONE- A '''

'' WHEN NOBODY HAS SERVICE ''. THE LACK of a working signal plagues characters across subgenres - apocalyptic survival stories [ '' Bird Box '' and '' Knock at the Cabin '' ], deadly eat-the-rich sendups [ "' The Menu "] - Founding footage ghost stories [ '' Paranormal Activity : Next of Kin ''] and single-setting supernatural standoffs [" Evil Dead Rise.'' in which an earthquake both knocks out the network opens a sealed realm with haunted artifacts].

Granted, many characters elect to put themselves in situations where they can't be reached. As one character explains to his friends  in the meta-slasher '' The Cabin in the Woods,'' getting off the grid and secluding themselves in the cabin is '' the entire point."

The similarly smarty-pants neo-slasher '' Bodies Bodies Bodies '' is premised on faulty communication among its characters and an inability to contact the authorities when things get weird - so much so that the movie's final words acknowledge the return of reception and land like a punchline.

'' HORROR MOVIE MAKERS '' : A SMARTPHONE CAN'T HELP YOU NOW. When one quick call can eliminate danger and undermine screams, horror moviemakers have to figure a workaround.

A cellphone lies in a rustic Airbnb, smashed by an intruder. Then, when another is procured, a faculty connection interrupts a call to 911. A navigation map on a smartphone glitches as a driver plunges deep into the woods.

Criminals on a kidnapping job are ordered to surrender their phones '' to be completely certain that you can't be tracked.''

An exasperated partyer in rural Ontario wonders aloud to a member in his group, '' How long is it going to take for you to realize there's no reception out here? ''

These are some of the ways that recent horror movies have gotten around what is at this point an age-old problem : the cellphone. In working order, they can render predicaments more solvable and certain situations easier to escape -potentially.

Before the late 90s, there was little need to make  such a show of connectivity failure. Lines would go down or get cut, sure, but isolation in the age before mass cellphone usage was easier to come by and therefore easier to believe onscreen. Back then, the tropes didn't have to trope so hard.

Then came the cell, and movies like ''House on Haunted Hill'' [1999] and '' Jeepers Creepers '' [2001] featured characters realizing they were holding useless plastic flip-bricks as their situations grew hairy. 

[ In the former, the possessed house kills the signal before any of its inhabitants, in the later, young adult siblings bicker over a low battery notification after witnessing what turns out to be a winged demon.]

With smartphones, there was even more to neutralize, like GPS maps and internet searches. Movies taking pains to explain away cellphones were so prevalent that by 2009, I could collect more than 40 clips for a supercut explaining this development in the previous decade or so.

But the recent examples above [ from this year's  '' The Strangers : Chapter 1,'' '' The Watchers,'' '' Abigail '' and '' In a Violent Nature '' ] show that horror remains gripped by a certain disconnection tension.

It is perhaps even more pronounced as our tethers to these devices have only strengthened with time. While some movies come off as cliched when treating the cellphone issue as a formality that must be resolved as perfunctorily as possible, others have gotten creative.

And the continued ubiquity reflects a certain unease many of us feel when we are off the grid in real life, whether or not we're in the cross hairs of a maniac.

In many examples, the unreliable cellphone is not just a facilitator of the horror - it's a key element to it. Maybe it's Pavlovian at this point, but the lack of a working cellphone can scan as an inherently horrific situation.

The Honour and Serving of the Latest Global Operational Research on Horror Movies, Unreliable Phones, Connectivity continues. The World Students Society thanks Rich Juzwiak.

With most respectful dedication to The Global Founder Framers of !WOW! - the exclusive and eternal ownership of every student in the world - and then MovieMakers, Students, Professors and Teachers.

See You all prepare for Great Global Elections on : wssciw.blogspot.com and Twitter X !E-WOW! - The Ecosystem 2011 :

Good Night and God Bless

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