Last night Himself and I watched a film. At least, he watched it; I left about a third of the way through for the bright lights and comfort of the kitchen downstairs. I've never had much stomach for the supernatural in films; tremulous cellos and slowly moving camera shots are enough for me to reach for a large cushion to hide behind. Last night, after the first distinctly weird death (heard, not watched, from behind the cushion) I'd had enough. In our bright, safe kitchen, I put on an 80s radio station and worried contentedly at plot threads in the thoroughly non-paranormal novel I'm writing, while the tastes, smells and sounds of tea, chocolate and ancient pop grounded me in normality.
But the writer had done his or her job. This morning, I woke up still disturbed. The film's story had one central question: were two people inhabiting one body? Or was it one charlatan, aided in a complex deception by charlatan doctors? How would the struggle between good and evil, foreshadowed in that first half-hour, play out in the end? Would the heroine's loving family members - a daughter, a brother, the father who introduced her to the antagonist - be sacrificed during the struggle? The antagonist's story was by no means clear by the time I left: were the powers he seemed to have under his control? The prickly, aggressive host and the benign young man in the wheelchair he apparently becomes - which one will turn out to be the agent of good, or evil?
Though I couldn't face watching it, and it's not a genre I enjoy, my thoughts about the film were the first thing I scribbled on waking this morning, and I'm still thinking about it. This is my aim, and the aim of every writer: to hook readers and viewers even against their will.
It's a bright Saturday and I've got things to write, stuff to do. But I'm going to watch the end of that story. In daylight, with tea, chocolate and cushions at the ready.
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