[Congressional Record Volume 155, Number 162 (Tuesday, November 3, 2009)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Pages E2701-E2702]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




              WATCHING THE GIANTS, AND AMBUSHED BY ZOMBIES

                                 ______
                                 

                         HON. CAROLYN McCARTHY

                              of new york

                    in the house of representatives

                       Tuesday, November 3, 2009

  Mrs. McCARTHY of New York. Madam Speaker, I enter into the 
Congressional Record an essay published in the New York Times and 
written by a constituent of mine, Mr. James H. Burns (Jim Burns) of 
Valley Stream.

                            [Oct. 23, 2009]

              Watching the Giants, and Ambushed by Zombies

       Columbia Pictures Images from ads for films such as 
     ``Zombieland'' can startle or frighten unwary TV viewers.
       Halloween has always been the season when Hollywood 
     unleashes some of its most suspenseful and supernatural 
     offerings. When I was a child in the late '60s and early 
     '70s, the horror slate was a splendid array, ranging from the 
     relative innocence of monster-ramas to the erotically tinged 
     creature flicks of Britain's famed Hammer Studios. Somewhere 
     in between were the less stylish but often enjoyable low-
     budget drive-in fare from America's exploitation studios 
     (almost all of which went out of business years ago) and the 
     occasional major-studio horror movies often rereleased at 
     this time of year.
       But this mostly imaginative crop devolved to the dime-a-
     dozen, cut-'em-up-and-watch-'em-bleed movies, of which 
     ``Friday the 13th'' is perhaps the most famous example. 
     Although I was one of the earliest group of writers for 
     Fangoria, the horror-movie magazine, and also acted in a 
     couple of horror films years ago, my opinion of the genre's 
     more grotesque examples has changed.
       I used to believe that slasher movies--or ``gore-or,'' as I 
     started calling them in the 1980s--were like a celluloid 
     roller coaster, a relatively harmless catharsis. But now I 
     think that the intensity of Hollywood's blood-and-guts 
     barrage and the ability of such films to desensitize at least 
     a portion of the audience cannot be denied. And they 
     certainly should not be advertised on television during what 
     are supposed to be family viewing hours.
       Sometime back, I was stunned to look up from a halftime 
     snack to see horrifying images from one of the ``Hostel'' 
     movies--rapidly edited for maximum terrifying impact--being 
     run as a commercial during a 4 p.m. football game.
       A few weeks ago, the Giants game included an advertisement 
     with a zombie child (dressed in her chiffonlike finest, a 
     pink bow in her hair) being dragged behind a car, and a 
     bikinied beauty running in a parking lot, her mouth covered 
     with a darkened ooze. (The spot, an ad for ``Zombieland,'' 
     ended with a ``hero'' threatening an obese ghoul with an 
     oversized pair of garden shears.)
       Last Sunday about 2 p.m., Giants fans saw possibly even 
     more disturbing sequences--an apoplectic screamer, a man 
     having convulsions, and an almost subliminal shot of a 
     foreboding, wraithlike alien--even though

[[Page E2702]]

     the movie being advertised, ``The Fourth Kind,'' has been 
     rated PG-13. Late afternoon also had a particularly creepy 
     ``Criminal Minds'' clip about forced impregnation, with a 
     chilling baby-doll motif. Comparable commercials have been 
     shown during early-evening prime-time broadcasts.
       This is the week when we're reminded of how much fun can be 
     derived from a sense of the fantastic, and how deeply the 
     desire for terrifying thrills is imbued in many film fans. 
     But the choice of whether to be confronted with these images 
     should clearly still belong to each person. Innocent 
     bystanders should not be ambushed by these kinds of 
     graphically violent, disturbing scenes.

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