The Stereotypical Horror Movie Victims' Halloween 2012 Hit-List

I spent a while thinking about how I wanted to structure this blog post. Originally it was going to be called "Something Old, Something New, Something Borrowed, Something Blue" and I was going to spotlight a classic horror movie, a recent one, a remake, and whatever the hell "Something Blue" would entail. I still don't know what I would've done with that last criteria, so it's a relief that I didn't use the above idea.

Next I thought about taking the names of the seven dwarves from Snow White and selecting a horror movie to correspond with each one of them. For instance, Doc = a movie about an evil doctor/dentist, Dopey = a crappy movie, Sleepy = ???. As you can see, this was an awful idea and one whose origin I'm still unable to trace, but troubled by nonetheless.

Anyway, here we are and I think I've found the perfect structural device to give this blog post the panache it needs to really stand out. So, without further ado, I present to you:

The Stereotypical Horror Movie Victims' Halloween 2012 Hit-List

Odds are that you're familiar with the usual cast of characters in a horror movie: the virginal heroine and her foil the whore, the noble male protagonist and his foil the party animal, and then whatever other two-bit character(s) the film's creators decide to throw in the mix to up the body count. Well, I'm going to shamelessly structure my list of Halloween horror movie recommendations off of those aforementioned stereotypes, so bear with me. (I've avoided plot details for the most part, so as to keep spoilers to a minimum.)

The Virginal Heroine
This is the character who usually survives (until the sequel). She's chaste and honorable and, despite the idiotic decisions her friends make, she manages to outsmart her competition. Reminds me of a little film called Don't Look Now (1973) in which a grieving couple visits Italy where a series of murders are occurring at the time. This movie may not be flashy, but it remains true to its story and its characters and, in doing so, manages to outsmart most of the modern horror films out there today.

Hip-Hop Stars and Their NFL Doppelgangers Pt. I

Hip-Hop Stars and Their NFL Doppelgangers Pt. I

"Damn, I swear sports and music are so synonymous,
'cause we wanna be them and they wanna be us."
- Drake, "Thank Me Now," Thank Me Later 

No one says it quite like Drake. But no one says it quite like me either, so here's a brief preamble before we get into the meat and potatoes of this post:

While actors spend most of their time pretending to be someone else and writers spend most of their time holed up by themselves typing, athletes and musicians fall into that same category of celebrity which forces them into the limelight without giving them any roles or desks to hide behind. Whether it occurs at a nationally televised game or a sold-out concert, whether they're wearing team colors or representing their record label, athletes and musicians are forced into the forefront of public consciousness with only their skillset and the faith they have in that skillset to engage their spectators. It's the most raw form of exposure and it's likely because of this that so many involved with either profession are accused of possessing an "ego." If you perform well, you'll be idolized and if you screw up, the punishment is just as damning. Few other occupations face such overwhelming public scrutiny.

It's no wonder that Drake draws this comparison between those in his own field and those who take the field. For those of you familiar with the song, you may be aware that the preceding line of "Thank Me Now" references Jordan and Iverson. However, I'm inclined to believe that football parallels music, especially hip-hop more closely than basketball and for that reason I've created the following list of hip-hop stars and their NFL doppelgangers. Enjoy.

Drake = Arian Foster 

Both young, both at the top of their respective games, I've been haunted by this comparison since Foster first blew up in 2010. Imagine a virtually unknown player breaking onto the scene with 1,600+ rushing yards, 16 touchdowns, and no multi-million dollar deal to speak of. Compare that with Drake's sudden emergence: So Far Gone dropped in 2009 without a label backing him and all of a sudden his music began receiving radio play and led to a deal with Young Money.

Now that both athlete and artist have become sensations, they continue to dominate with a certain swagger their peers struggle to match. However, it isn't without an air of sincerity and depth that they do so. Foster is known to often engage interviewers in conversations relating to eastern philosophy thus upending the stupid football player stereotype whereas Drake has no qualms about bearing his emotions in his music and relating to his listeners on a personal level thus displaying layers of character otherwise unheard of in the modern hip-hop scene.