“The villainy you teach me I will execute—and it shall go hard but I will better the instruction.”

—– Shylock from The Merchant of Venice by William Shakespere

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I do however, remember how I felt when I saw a movie about revenge at the Chateau Theater that fall. Halloween 1977.

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It was an odd time for me. Still a naive eighteen-year-old from farm country. “Roachville” could hardly be called a city but I was living in the heart of it, and working for one of the most prominent and important institutions in the country.

In the World.

My world had changed dramatically since that summer. The party place that was my apartment on East Center St. was significantly less fun now that Mark was off to college and winter was coming. Ronnie Ralston wasn’t there much and Melvin was working long hours at his job with Sears & Roebuck. I’d pretty much gotten the hang of the basics of my job at 6-D East so I had more time in my mind and… the phycological distress permeating the place was on it a lot.

Since my job included observing people in that distress and looking for ways to describe my observations to my superiors, it was logical that I would be taking that home from work a bit. I was not at all good at writing those observations (which would be a factor in my leaving the job) but I think that my natural desire to please, to be of use… to help, encouraged me to look more closely at everyone around me in ways for which I had not previously had much mental vocabulary.

It was in this state of mind, this internal space of quiet observation (quite apart from my usual gregarious self) that I entered the Chateau Theater that Halloween of 1977, for the midnight showing of a new horror film (just released that summer) that was already becoming a cult classic of the genre.

“The Hills Have Eyes”.

I’m sure many of you (my dear readers) know of this film. If not the one I was about to see, then the remake released in 2006. It’s a very disturbing film for many reasons and because it is now very well known, I’m not going to go into details. But it was a brand new thing that night. Especially in Rochester. And in my state of mind, I was as interested in the reactions of my fellow movie-goers to what I saw as the movie’s main theme, as I was to the movie itself. I also found those reactions to be equally disturbing.

If not more so.

In my view, the main theme of “The Hills Have Eyes” is the legitimization of revenge. The “good” family set upon by the “evil” family, is seen by the audience as justified in committing acts of violence and torture above and beyond simply protecting themselves. Their revenge becomes “justice” and the audience is then encouraged to enjoy seeing it carried out.

Sitting among these people, I wasn’t watching them at first. But the movie was so extreme to me, it was hard to watch and I began looking around to see if anyone else was equally affected. I was shocked to see to opposite.

In my field of vision every single person was completely riveted by what they were seeing. Their expressions showed not disgust (as I was feeling) but excitement and joy. No doubt this was ground-breaking stuff to them, and they were among the fist to have had the privilege to be seeing it now, at this time. The PERFECT movie for their Halloween!

And then I heard them.

Several of my fellow movie-goers were gesturing at the screen and saying something. They were not saying it loudly so it was hard to hear at first. But soon I could hear that they were cheering the violence. Egging the remaining members of the good family on as they turned the tables on the evil ones.

“Kill em! KILL Em!” I heard them say. And saw many audience members smiling as they did so.

“Yea!… Oh Man Yea! Kill them all”

Their voices were muted, but I could hear them.

I left the theater.