Bloodlust

I’ll admit a certain loathing for films of that are gory. I’ll run a mile from the Saws and Hostels of this world. I am happy to say I am a complete wuss in these areas. And I try never to watch a horror movie; it’ll give me nightmares or guarantee a sleepless night. Although I’ll admit to recently seeing The Shining, which although not that violent, terrified me and made me keep the lights until my housemate very politely asked me to turn them off since it was four in the morning. There is just something rather unpleasant about axes, and even more so about Jack Nickelson.

All of this aside I have come to a rather strange and somewhat embarrassing admittance, given what I always considered normal for me. It is this – I suffer from bloodlust. I really like a good shoot them up, could sit through back to back Die Hards (maybe not the 2^nd one!), and now I have discovered 300. What is not to like (other than perhaps the rape part)? It has great battle scenes, your regular Hollywood historical inaccuracies and furthermore grown men parading around in loin clothes acting as though this is perfectly acceptable behaviour… how is this not great!? It also features many surreal and gruesome fight scenes, although my wimpy side forced me from the room for the more extreme bits, I did see some rather horrid decapitations and torture scenes. But this I now realise is an advantage – during a violent or bloody act I simply go and make tea. So I realise that this extreme and bloodthirsty action flicks are fast on their way to becoming my favourite form of entertainment, I get tea, skip the violent cuttings up, and still see half naked men. Thus combining a dash of blood, and a whole lot of lust… a rather great deal in my mind, and given it’s a Hollywood action movie, nipping out half way through, well I’m hardly going to miss the plot since there probably isn’t one. It a great shame this practice couldn’t be adopted in the cinema, although if it had been I would have spent most of Pirates of the Caribbean 3 sat in a tearoom somewhere hoping that just one of the over paid actors on the screen would find a script.

This introduction of a well-timed tea break into a violent movie also offers you, the scared amongst us, the chance to lift the mug to hide parts of the screen we’d rather not see. Handy that.

Finally, back to the inspiration behind the tea break – 300. My new almost favourite film, if only they’d got G. Butler to shave, because sadly all the cups of tea in the world can’t get rid of that vile beard.