Anyway, I was right in my prediction about having already seen the better of my two scheduled horror movies, but not just because After.Life was so good. The Black Waters of Echo’s Pond just was not so much of a much, too. And more’s the pity, it took itself entirely seriously, so there was no post-modern black humor mixed up with all the gore and mayhem. The film quality did remind me now and then of one of the ’70s movies that predated the slasher genre, when everything good was European and had a great deal of weight to it, and I can respect what they were trying to do with this and other similarities. I just don’t think they ever quite got there.

However, there were several valuable lessons to be taken away from the night’s festivities. Suppose that you have traveled with several friends, some of whom are not entirely comfortable with others, to a small island off the coast of Maine[1] for a weekend getaway at somebody’s uncle’s old house. And further suppose that said uncle has been telling ghost stories. And further suppose that the house is old and rickety and sometimes the fuses just fail. Under these conditions, I present a few suggestions for how to conduct the rest of your evening.

1) If you fall through rotted boards into an otherwise inaccessible room beneath the basement stairs, and then find boarded up within the already inaccessible room beneath the stairs a very large, ornately carved box and several ancient scrolls, you should probably leave them alone.
2) If you bring them with you up into the living room and upon examination find them to be an old board game referencing Greek mythology, most notably a handful of misnamed Furies and an iffy retelling of the doomed romance between Narcissus and Echo, you should probably not play the board game.
3) If you play the board game and it encourages several of you to engage in sexual encounters that run contrary to your current relationships with people who are right there in the room, you should… well, who am I kidding, this is a horror movie, you’re pretty much gonna do that part no matter what. But if you insist on doing it, have the common decency to actually be naked on the screen as a result of important plot developments, instead of in one inexplicably gratuitous shower scene.
4) If you have disregarded the rest of my advice, and as an inevitable result find yourself standing on a dock, looking for a way off the island and having just fought off a possessed killer who used to be your friend, but not in such a way that you are certain beyond any inkling of doubt that he is dead, don’t leave your chainsaw unattended on the dock.
5) If you have disregarded my fourth piece of advice, at the very least take notice of the fact that the chainsaw isn’t there anymore the next time you are on the dock. I mean, Jesus Christ!
6) If you are one of the last two non-murderous people on the island, it is probably okay to stop picking fights with each other until you have made it safely back to the mainland. Not just because murderous people are still unaccounted for, either. I mean, what if the one of you that you just picked that fight with goes insane? I’m just saying, it’s been kind of a trend, alright?
7) But mostly, if you are friends, maybe stop being such dicks to each other. If you are not friends, maybe don’t go to a small, creepy island off the coast of Maine for a weekend together. Not that the other suggestions are in any way unimportant, just this one would head off most of the real trouble before you got around to ignoring the others. I mean, I’d play the mysterious old board game that had been hidden away for decades, it’s not like I can really kid anyone on that point, right?

[1] It’s kind of always Maine, isn’t it? Or else maybe Washington, but mostly Maine. I think I blame Stephen King, but plausibly he is just another symptom of the real cause, which is that Maine itself is some kind of shadow dimension extruding into our rational world. I should probably ought to visit it sometime.