Leave Ghosts Alone!

Remember when vampires were somewhat cool, and interesting? Remember the show Buffy: The Vampire Slayer, and how clever it was, and how it perfectly handled the vampire element? Remember when vampires were scary?


Those days are gone. A whole slew of sucky (no pun intended) teen romance books and movies (you know the ones--they have that boy with the big hair, the other boy who always has his shirt off, and that robot disguised as a girl) pretty much destroyed any mystery or intrigue that vampires held. It turned them into wussy, glittery, sad-sacks. Even Anne Rice’s prissy, pretty-boy vampires were still, when it came down to it, ruthless killers.

Well now it seems the vampire teat has been milked for all its blood (eww), and the powers that be are looking for a new supernatural creature to fuck-up. What will it be? Will they start making movies about love-struck Frankensteins, trying to woo the outcast girl at school? Will teenage mummies start unwrapping their bandages to reveal really buff guys?

According to this article  in Wired, "ghosts are the new vampires.”

Already, there are several shitty-sounding teen ghost books that are being snatched up by Hollywood to turn into shitty-sounding teen ghost movies. I am bothered by this.

Sure, you could argue at the end of the day, this doesn’t really matter. They’re just movies and books. And you’re 100 % correct. But I really enjoy ghosts and ghost stories. When done properly, there’s so much you can say and do with a ghost story. Do we really need a bunch of movies where sad teen ghosts fall for sad teen humans, all of which will have the same message: We can never be together, because I am a ghost and you are alive!! (sad face).

C’mon people, leave ghosts alone.