I just came back from seeing Disturbia. It wasn’t really something I wanted to see but because it is a boring public holiday with nothing else to do, it seemed like the only option. All the other movies that were playing looked quite shiteous and it was between Disturbia and The Reaping.Disturbia it was.

Before I go and see a movie I don’t really give a shit about, I like to read up on it as much as I can. This includes reading people’s comments on IMDb, reading reviews of the film or sometimes even finding the entire plot and reading that. I don’t know why I do that, it probably is because I don’t really care about the movie so I just want to know all about it so there are no surprises. However, this does not apply with movies that I am very interested in seeing. I will avoid reading IMDb (aka The Whiny Bitches Database), Wikipedia, film reviews… ANYTHING to do with the film.

Disturbia is not really a film I would see. I don’t really like thriller movies that much. Well… okay. I don’t mind thriller movies but honestly, after about an hour of watching a film that conveys thrills very well I feel like taking up smoking again. The stress is unnecessary. If I want a scare, I’ll watch a horror film. The only problem is this - while to the outsider, a thriller and horror movie may seem similar they are in fact, very different.

Thriller films are different to horror films because women will actually go and see thrillers. They will actually WANT to go see a thriller, to get scared and to jump in their seats. I’m not exactly sure why women would rather see a thriller than a horror movie since horror is really just big comedic gore fest whereas I feel like I’m going to die in a theatre when I see a thriller. I don’t really like to go to the cinema to die of a heart attack, I’d much rather someone do that on screen with hilarious consequences if you get my drift.

Horror movies are taboo for women. You will rarely see a female watching a horror film without a male escort. She will most probably be there against her will. For my friends and I, this is usually not the case. My friend Petra is always up for watching a horror movie with me, and Nessa is up for it too. The others… I don’t think so. I don’t think I’ve seen that too often; where a bunch of females willingly go and see a horror movie that isn’t The Grudge or Saw or anything super gay like that.

So what the fuck is the difference between being scared shitless for about 45 minutes, or watching someone die on screen in a gory yet comedic way? Well.. there’s the obvious difference there. But why is forcing yourself to watch something that will scare you so much easier than watching something that will gross you out or make you laugh?

Women will willingly go to thriller films. They’ll go with a bunch of their friends, sit there and squeal about how scared they are. You know, like I did tonight. But they won’t go to horror films. Why. WHY!

Because maybe we like being scared. Maybe we like the rush of being freaked out for a little while. And maybe we also can’t stand to be grossed out. Maybe we can’t take horror films so thriller films are like our ’soft core’ shit. Who knows? Maybe we like the clues… the build up to the chase. The psychology of it all. The fact that it creeps us the fuck out. The emotions that the main character goes through. Maybe the Thriller film is like a Romantic Comedy that men are dragged to while the Horror film is like the Action movie that women are dragged to.

The experience of tonight has taught me a few things:

1) Treat the thriller genre like the romantic comedy: don’t see this movie on a first date. The guy will think you’re lame when you start screaming and cutting off the circulation of his arm. Kind of like how you would act in a romantic comedy movie, only instead of screaming you’d be crying and you’d probably still be cutting off the circulation of his arm.

2) Don’t buy any popcorn, especially the large serving. During the tense scenes, I ate like a pig. Guess it beats biting your nails. Wait. I did that too.

3) There is nothing you can do to stop squealing girls. Get it out on DVD if you want to see it without the added sound effects.

4) If you can see a thriller, you CAN see a horror film. Do it. Trust yourself. I believe in you!

After so much shit to get a ticket, then losing it and never finding it, then having my Mum feel so bad for me for losing the original ticket that she bought me another one I did it: I fucking saw Slayer. I SAW SLAYER. One of the first metal bands that I ever listened to when I was a wee little girl which spawned my love for metal to this very day. I honestly couldn’t believe that I was even going to see them and I was so excited that I was rendered emotionless. While everyone around me was screaming out “Slayer!” and pumping their fists in the air during pre-drinks, I felt a bit disconnected from the situation.I knew that the original gig sold out in about 30 hours, but now at a bigger venue to accommodate for the people who missed out - I noticed there were a FUCK LOAD of people. It got me thinking - where the fuck at these people at all the other awesome metal gigs? There are so many great metal bands coming to Perth that sometimes it’s embarrassing to see a venue a bit empty. Other these people were huge Slayer fans and just didn’t give a fuck about any other band or that every other metal gig I have gone to has always been 18+ and therefore the crowd is reduced. I don’t really know what I prefer - a bigger crowd with everyone and stupid little kids (a majority of them anyway) or an 18+ crowd who act like stupid little kids. I understand it’s metal, but there should be a barrier between metalhead and barbarian.

For example, there were people who somehow thought that they were apes and started climbing the rafters and swinging from rafter to rafter in order to get a good spot to see Slayer. I kept thinking of cops rolling up and taking someone away in a body bag. That was definitely in my thoughts. I always thought people who did stupid shit like that and then drop down into the crowd were fucking asking for a pelting as someone else could get seriously hurt when all they wanted to do was go to a gig and enjoy it instead of being taken away in an ambulance with a broken something or other or being held up by their friends all night. If it weren’t for the watchful eyes of my boyfriend, I probably could have been one of those people. One of the assholes that climbed up on the rafter decided to slide down on a pole and could have landed on my fucking head had Roger not grabbed me out of the way. I can assure you that if I got hurt by that asshole, even if I had my neck broken, I would have probably tried to kick him in the nuts.

I just love the security at metal gigs, especially when the gigs are HUGE. Security think because their fat and big that somehow we will find them intimidating. It’s just funny to watch them pretend no one is doing anything wrong because all of a sudden they get scared when they see a sea of long hair and black EVERYTHING. It’s obvious that metalheads are on top of the food chain in regards to these kinds of things. We’re honestly not that scary. A lot of us are just hippies.. maybe.

Mastodon (pictured) are a band that went straight over my head. I have a couple of their albums, but decided after some time that we had to go our separate ways. It just wasn’t happening. They’re not my bag. And they weren’t that great on stage. It seemed as though they just went on stage to get paid or something. They didn’t even acknowledge the crowd until the end of their set which really sucks. HEY MAN, some of those kids were there to see YOU. And you acted like they didn’t even exist. That’s a HUGE No-no in my list of things bands should not do at gigs. They may have been a tight band, and the sound was decent, but they weren’t even worthy of being there. Mastodon’s lack of regard for their audience was greatly contrasted when Slayer got on stage. Tom Araya’s intro to every couple of song’s was just classic. Like when Corpsegrinder said to us “if you don’t go nuts to this song, I’ll kill you”.

I almost died when Slayer got on stage - not because it was finally happening, but because I couldn’t see SHIT thanks to the stupid smoke machine. People standing in front of me is fine - I can move. But the smoke machine? I was blinded for about 15 minutes.

I went nuts, like I usually do but I didn’t even attempt to sing any of the words because I really like hearing Tom sing, rather than myself. I took a whole bunch of photo’s but none of them turned out that great. Either way, I’ll put them up on my flickr sometime soon.. just so I have memories.

I don’t really know what to say other than i saw SLAYER last night and they fucking ruled! Sure, there were misgivings about almost being landed on, people standing in front of me, being blinded by the smoke, the sound being a bit so-so.. but it was still fucking awesome. Slayer came to Perth, and they fucking owned.

I love you Slayer. More than Coca Cola.