Another daily blog post from yours truly as promised. (And on time)
If you know me personally then you know for at least a decade my favorite movie genre was scary horror/thriller films. As of last night my new favorite is survivalist movies like The Descent and The Ruins. What sealed the deal was The Jungle starring Daniel Radcliffe. I won’t spoil the ending because I truly hate spoilers. If I may implore you to go watch it if you have the time. Well worth the watch even if it’s not something you would normally be interested in.
Since I was younger I enjoyed horror films like the Chucky films , the Conjuring series and nearly all of the Haunting in ** movies. Seed of Chucky, The Conjuring 2 and Haunting in Connecticut being my favorites. Then along came 47 Meters Down and I slowly started to rethink my preferences. I can say with much conviction that I despise and don’t enjoy chick flicks or love films like The Notebook at all.
I generally also enjoy apocalyptic movies like Bird Box and A Quiet Place but now that my vision of moving off grid at some point is crystal clear survivalist type movies seem to draw me in a lot more. Of course I still enjoy jump scares so movies with those qualities as well as a man vs nature type settings move to the top of the list hands down.
Watching these types of movies also sparked the realization in me that humans are the most ill-equipted species to simply survive on this planet which years ago would have probably triggered some kind of depressive state. Like when I realized the way we house and kill mass amounts of animals like livestock such as cows, pigs, chickens and even smaller game like rabbits. Needless to say I handled that information quite poorly as I allowed myself to spiral into depression and had my first and hopefully last suicide attempts. Trying to make myself feel better about being human I went vegan for some time and started to repurpose everything almost becoming what most would call a hoarder. Slowly I pulled myself out of that and took the knowledge and instead of sulking forever evolved into the more self conscious man I am today.
It’s comforting to know that I have a skill set that would get me by for at least a little while should society as we know it crumble or I become stranded in the wilderness. Skills a bit more that just how to create fire, shelter and hunt small game. However I do intend to improve and build on those skills tremendously over the next year or so as I prepare for the disconnect from the rat race of what is “normal” life. How often do you think how helpless you would be if you couldn’t go to the store and pick food from the shelf or suddenly lost the privilege of clean running water at a moments notice? Even simple things like having shoes could dramatically alter your every day life. Scary isn’t it? Most of us go day to day with out even the thought. But let me stay on topic.
I can’t stress enough how the movie The Jungle sat with me, to the point the ending gave me chills and that heavy feeling in your stomach like your crying on the inside. At least give it a try I’m pretty sure we get pressured to watch movies just because “rotten tomatoes” gives it a million thumbs up or whatever when in reality it’s just another movie. I can remember how much they pushed Black Panther on us all. I still haven’t watched it mainly because I’m not really into DC or marvel superhero type films but mostly because I like going against the grain and as a black man it felt as if I was expected by everyone to go see it because of the all black cast. In hindsight I can recall how much Bird Box was pushed as well and I simply refused to watch it because of all the publicity. I watched it maybe 6 months to a year later and I was actually very impressed. Do y’all remember all of the “take your blindfold off” memes ha ha. So I guess don’t judge a movie by it’s box office numbers
I can’t recall the name of the movie but it was about 3 people trapped on the thingy that brings skiers to the top of the slopes, that was a very good movie as well another one of my top picks of the survivalist type movies. As of now the fore mentioned movie and The Ruins are my top 2 and I probably will rewatch them when given the chance. Oddly enough I’m not a big fan of tv shows with the same theme like Naked and Afraid. Man vs Wild with Bear Grylls was intriguing for a while but it loses me because he is basically out there with a camera crew wether they assist him or not.
At some point I will make a list of “must see” movies ifyou are like me and find the genre at all the least bit intriguing. Simply searching “survivalist films” brings up a really weird algorithm and makes it difficult to really pinpoint the good ones. Originally I thought the post would contain a lot more words but I seem to have run out of steam and I’m holding back the spoilers like a dump you need to get rid of at a carnival. No one spoiled it for me so I would like to give my readers the same opportunity. BUT if you HAVE seen The Jungle please by all means let’s talk about it at some point.
As always, thanks for reading and supporting.
-K
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