State of Horror Address: The SyFy Channel

    The SyFy Channel has something in common with Nixon. I don't mean the fact that they've both made the supergator battle the megashark. I mean no-one ever admits to loving made-for-SyFy movies, yet there they are. Someone has to be watching them. A few people may obsessively watch them out of pure, overwhelming hatred, much as I do my neighbors. But most must watch them with the love a husband shows his agred, arthritic wife as he watches her drool in her sleep. Or the love a committed stalker shows the D-list celebrity who doesn't know he exists.

    Where Nixon is rightly despised for his hideous holiday sweaters, however, what is it about made-for-SyFy movies that rankles the cankles of horror and sci-fi nerds? Could it be that they use CGI instead of giving work to chronically underemployed monsters, like the sasquatch and Eric Roberts? Or are they resented for recycling plots in a time when we've grown tired of sorting our plastics from our cardboards? Maybe the problem is a sense of general low quality, not General Lokualitay the trusted Nixon defense secretary, but the lack of concern for the audience's sophisticated blue cheese and caviar tastes.

    Modern tastes demand a certain verisimilitude. Not Vera Sommilee-Tood the trusted Nixon secretary of labor, but the approximation of reality. Modern audiences want a superconda they can believe in, one that looks, sounds, tastes and plays footsie like a real superconda would. If they can't find a superconda, a megagator, or even a damn-dats-hugeamander, as the great Hitchcock personally tranquillized and wrangled ultragulls for The Birds, there are other options. The benchmark for practical effects was set by Carpenter's The Thing, Spielberg's Jurassic Park, and Cameron's Revenge of the Titanic. When you watch Jurassic Park, you imagine you could ride, pet, or get a happy-hour drink with the t-rex. But apparently these effects are only practical if you have a hundred million, not Italian Lira or Japanese Yen, but good ol' US green to spare.

    But can't our computer overlords satisfy our verisimilitoris? Or is the CG-spot just a myth? We readily received Lawnmower Man into our hearts, even if it resembles Deep Blue's checkmate vomit. And nobody minds that Anthony Perkins was a poorly-rendered polygon in Psycho. But it was new then. Since then we've been spoiled by The Mist, The Host, and motion captured apes named 'Andy.' Like Paris Hilton's vagina, we want big, expensive things. And if we must have illusion, we want it to be of expensive things being destroyed. Hence David Copperfield's most famous illusion, "Corporate CEO Sodomy."

    So, it seems that we, like Peris Hilton's vagina, have become too sophisticated and needy to enjoy good ol' fashioned American Dyna-Mation. Not Dinah-Mae Shunn, the Nixon press secretary, but original special effects of b-movies, the wonderfully imaginative clay models our grandparents tried to tell us look realistic. Or the highly-ineffective rear-screen projections of giant turkey vultures--are we too good for them now? Because made-for-SyFy movies are in the grand, old tradition of the over-reaching American B-movie that had more hopes you were drunk than they had budget or talent.

    But we didn't have to be drunk to enjoy The Giant Gila Monster. We had a sense of fun. And that same fun awaits us in the likes of Rage of the Yeti--you'll find it right beside Yancy Butler's cocaine money. If anything, these movies have gotten better because there's about twenty minutes less of scientists arguing with military guys. Because these days scientists have proven that blowing things up is better.

   That's why we're watching these movies. Not because Lou Diamond Phillips has to eat or Yancy Butler needs her blow, but because they're pure, American B-movie fun. With that comes a lot of bad dialogue, plot drag, occasionally silly monsters, and disbelief so suspended you've defiled the graves of its ancestors. But if you're a horror nerd, you know it's worth it.

    And here's something the SyFy Channel doesn't have in common with Nixon. I'm not referring to Nixon's delicious, secret raspberry jam recipe. I mean the SyFy Channel is not a crook. They uphold their end of the bargain, not just with Yancy Butler's nose candy, but with intentional, B-movie fun. Maybe you can't imagine a good game of Scrabble with the Sharktopus, but you sure can join the 'Oh! Shit!' guy in enjoying the megashark eat a Boeing 737, and you can join the supershark in agreeing it's appropriate he right a tank with legs. Because that's the B-movie tradition Nixon didn't want us to have.

    That's why I'm--well, not exactly proud, but at least moderately pleased to say, "I voted for SyFy!"

P.S. Nixon's jam secret is the pinch of nutmeg.